The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About
the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas
for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.

All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.

Page 1

THE MIRACLE MAN

—­I—­

The “Roost”

He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in
the night at the entrance of the dark alleyway—­like
some lurking creature in its lair. He neither
stood, nor kneeled, nor sat—­no single word
would describe his posture—­he combined
all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap.

The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway
onto the pavement, into the lurid lights of the Bowery,
flopping along knee to toe on one leg, dragging the
other leg behind him—­and the leg he dragged
was limp and wobbled from the knee. One hand
sought the pavement to balance himself and aid in
locomotion; the other arm, the right, was twisted out
from his body in the shape of an inverted V, the palm
of his hand, with half curled, contorted fingers,
almost touching his chin, as his head sagged at a
stiff, set angle into his right shoulder. Hair
straggled from the brim of a nondescript felt hat
into his eyes, and curled, dirty and unshorn, around
his ears and the nape of his neck. His face was
covered with a stubble of four days’ growth,
his body with rags—­a coat; a shirt, the
button long since gone at the neck; and trousers gaping
in wide rents at the knees, and torn at the ankles
where they flapped around miss-mated socks and shoes.

A hundred, two hundred people passed him in a block,
the populace of the Bowery awakening into fullest
life at midnight, men, women and children—­the
dregs of the city’s scum—­the aristocracy
of upper Fifth Avenue, of Riverside Drive, aping Bohemianism,
seeking the lure of the Turkey Trot, transported from
the Barbary Coast of San Francisco. Rich and
poor, squalor and affluence, vice and near-vice surged
by him, voicing their different interests with laughter
and sobs and soft words and blasphemy, and, in a sort
of mocking chorus, the composite effect rose and fell
in pitiful, jangling discords.

Few gave him heed—­and these few but a cursory,
callous glance. The Flopper, on the inside of
the sidewalk, in the shadow of the buildings, gave
as little as he got, though his eyes were fastened
sharply, now ahead, now, screwing around his body
to look behind him, on the faces of the pedestrians
as they passed; or, rather, he appeared to look through
and beyond those in his immediate vicinity to the ones
that followed in his rear from further down the street,
or approached him from the next corner.

Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorway. From
amidst the crowd behind, the yellow flare of a gasoline
lamp, outhanging from a secondhand shop, glinted on
brass buttons. An officer, leisurely accommodating
his pace to his own monarchial pleasure, causing his
hurrying fellow occupants of the pavement to break
and circle around him, sauntered casually by.
The Flopper’s black eyes contracted with hate
and a scowl settled on his face, as he watched the
policeman pass; then, as the other was lost again
in the crowd ahead, he once more resumed his progress
down the block.

Page 2

The Flopper crossed the intersecting street, his leg
trailing a helpless, sinuous path on its not over-clean
surface, and started along the next block. Halfway
down was a garishly lighted establishment. When
near this the Flopper began to hurry desperately, as
from further along the street again his ear caught
the peculiar raucous note of an automobile horn accompanied
by the rumbling approach of a heavy motor vehicle.
He edged his way now, wriggling, squirming and dodging
between the pedestrians, to the outer edge of the
sidewalk, and stopped in front of the music hall.

A sight-seeing car, crammed to capacity, reaching
its momentary Mecca, drew up at the curb; and the
guide’s voice rose over the screech of the brakes:

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will get out
here for a little while. This is Black Ike’s
famous Auditorium, the scene of last week’s
sensational triple murder! Please remember that
there is no charge for admission to patrons of the
company. Just show your coupons, ladies and gentlemen,
and walk right ahead.”

The passengers began to pour from the long seats to
the ground. The Flopper’s hat was in his
hand.

The first man down from the seat halted and stared
at the twisted, unsightly thing before him, and, with
a little gasp, reached into his pocket and dropped
a bill into the Flopper’s hat.

“God bless you!” stammered the Flopper—­and
the tears sprang swimming to his eyes.

The first man passed on with a gruff, “Oh, all
right,” but he had left an example behind him
that few of his fellow passengers ignored.

“T’ank you, mum,” mumbled the Flopper,
as the money dropped into his hat. “God
reward you, sir.... Ah, miss, may you never know
a tear.... ’Twas heaven brought you ’ere
to-night, lady.”

They passed, following the guide. The Flopper
scooped the money into a pile in his hat, began to
tuck it away in some recess of his shirt—­when
a hand was thrust suddenly under his nose.

“Come on, now, divvy!” snapped a voice
in his ear.

It was the driver of the car, who had dropped from
his seat to the ground. A gleam of hate replaced
the tears in the Flopper’s eyes.

“Go to hell!” he snarled through thin
lips—­and his hand closed automatically
over the cap.

“Come on, now, I ain’t got no time to
fool!” prompted the man, with a leer. “I’m
dead onto your lay, and there’s a bull comin’
along now—­half or him, which?”

The Flopper’s eyes caught the brass buttons
of the officer returning on his beat, and his face
was white with an inhuman passion, as, clutching a
portion of what was left in the hat, he lifted his
hand from the rest.

“Thanks!” grinned the chauffeur, snatching
at the remainder. “’Tain’t half,
but it’ll do”—­and he hurried
across the sidewalk, and disappeared inside a saloon.

Page 3

Oaths, voicing a passion that rocked the Flopper to
his soul, purled in a torrid stream from his lips,
and for a moment made him forget the proximity of
the brass buttons. He raised his fist, that still
clenched some of the money, and shook it after the
other—­and his fist, uplifted in midair,
was caught in a vicious grip—­the harness
bull was standing over him.

“Beat it!” rasped the officer roughly,
“or I’ll—­hullo, what you got
here? Open your hand!”—­he gave
a sharp twist as he spoke, the Flopper’s fingers
uncurled, and the money dropped into the policeman’s
other hand—­held conveniently below the Flopper’s.

With twitching fingers, the Flopper picked up his
cap, placed it on his head and sidled away. Ten
yards along, in the shadow of the buildings again,
he looked back—­the officer was still standing
there, twirling his stick, one hand just emerging
from his pocket. The Flopper’s finger nails
scratched along the stone pavement and curved into
the palm of his hand until the skin under the knuckles
was bloodless white, and his lips moved in ugly, whispered
words—­then, still whispering, he went on
again.

Down the Bowery he went like a human toad, keeping
in the shadows, keeping his eyes on the ground before
him, a glint like a shudder in their depths—­on
he went with hopping, lurching jerks, with whispering
lips. Street after street he passed, and then
at a corner he turned and went East—­not
far, only to the side entrance of the saloon on the
corner known, to those who knew, as the “Roost.”

The door before which he stopped, on a level with
the street, might readily have passed for the entrance
to one of the adjoining tenements, for it was innocent
to all appearances of any connection with the unlovely
resort of which it was a part—­and it was
closed.

The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick glance
around him to assure himself that he was not observed,
he reached up for the doorknob, turned it, and with
surprising agility hopped oven the threshold and closed
the door behind him.

A staircase, making one side of a narrow and dimly
lighted hall, from down whose length came muffled
sounds from the barroom, was before him; and this,
without hesitation, the Flopper began to mount, his
knee thumping from step to step, his dangling leg
echoing the sound in a peculiar; quick double thump.
He reached the first landing, went along it, and started
up the second flight—­but now the thumping
sound he made seemed accentuated intentionally, and
upon his face there spread a grin of malicious humor.

He halted before the door opposite the head of the
second flight of stairs, opened it, wriggled inside
and shut it behind him.

“Hullo, Helena!” he snickered. “Pipe
me comin’?”

Page 4

The room was a fairly large one, gaudily appointed
with cheap furnishings, one of the Roost’s private
parlors—­a girl on a couch in the corner
had raised herself on her elbow, and her dark eyes
were fixed uncompromisingly upon the Flopper, but
she made no answer.

The Flopper laughed—­then a spasm seemed
to run through him, a horrible boneless contortion
of limbs and body, a slippery, twitching movement,
a repulsive though almost inaudible clicking of rehabilitated
joints—­and the Flopper stood erect.

The girl was on her feet, her eyes flashing.

“Can that stunt!” she cried angrily.
“You give me the shivers! Next time you
throw your fit, you throw it before you come around
me, or I’ll make you wish you had—­see?”

The Flopper was swinging legs and arms to restore
a normal channel of circulation.

“Y’oughter get used to it,” said
he, with a grin. “Ain’t Pale Face
Harry come yet, an’ where’s the Doc?”

“Behind the axe under the table,” said
the girl tartly—­and flung herself back
on the couch.

“T’anks,” said the Flopper.
“Say, Helena, wot’s de new lay de Doc has
got up his sleeve?”

He resumed the swinging of his arms and legs, but
stopped suddenly a moment later as a step, sounded
outside in the hall and he turned expectantly.

A young man, thin, emaciated, with gaunt, hollow face,
abnormally bright eyes and sallow skin, entered.
He was well, but modestly, dressed; and he coughed
a little now, as though the two flights’ climb
had overtaxed him—­it was the man who had
headed the subscription list to the Flopper half an
hour before in front of Black Ike’s Auditorium.

“Hello, Helena!” he greeted, nodding toward
the couch. “I shook the rubber-neck bunch
at Ike’s, Flopper. That was a peach of a
haul, eh, old pal—­the boobs came to it
as though they couldn’t get enough.”

A sudden and reminiscent scowl clouded the Flopper’s
face. He stepped to the table, reached his hand
into his shirt, and flung down a single one-dollar
bill and a few coins.

“Dere’s de haul, Harry—­help
yerself”—­his invitation was a snarl.

Pale Face Harry had followed to the table. He
looked first at the money, then at the Flopper—­and
a tinge of red dyed his cheek. He coughed before
he spoke.

“Y’ain’t going to stall on me,
Flopper, are you?” he demanded, in an ominous
monotone.

“Stall!”—­the word came away
in a roar too genuine to leave any doubt of the Flopper’s
sincerity, or the turbulent state of the Flopper’s
soul. “Stall nothin’! De driver
held me up fer some of it, an’ de cop pinched
de rest.”

Page 5

“I told you, ain’t I?” growled the
Flopper. “De driver called a divvy wid
de cop comin’, an I had ter shell—­an’
wot he left de cop pinched. Dat’s all”—­the
Flopper’s mouth was working again with the rage
that burned within him.

Pale Face Harry, with pointed forefinger, gingerly
and facetiously laid the coins out in a row on the
table.

“And you the king of Floppers!” he murmured
softly. “It’s a wonder you didn’t
let the Salvation Army get the rest away from you on
the way along!”

Helena laughed—­but the Flopper didn’t.
He stepped close to Pale Face Harry, and shoved his
face within an inch of the other’s.

A man, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, immaculate in
well-tailored tweeds, reliant in poise, leaned nonchalantly
against the door—­inside the room.
He was young, not more than twenty-eight, with clean-shaven,
pleasant, open face—­a handsome face, marred
only to the close observer by the wrinkles beginning
to pucker around his eyes, and a slight, scarcely
discernible puffiness in his skin—­“Doc”
Madison, gentleman crook and high-class, polished
con-man, who had lifted his profession to an art,
was still too young to be indelibly stamped with the
hall-marks of dissipation.

His gray eyes travelled from one to another, lingered
an instant on Helena, and came back to the Flopper.

“What’s the trouble?” he demanded
quietly.

It was Pale Face Harry who answered him.

“The Flopper’s got it in for a couple
of ginks that handed him one—­a bull and
a chauffeur on a gape-wagon,” he grinned, punctuating
his words with a cough. “The Flopper’s
got an idea the corpse-preserver’s business
is dull, and he’s going to help ’em out
with two orders and pay for the flowers himself.”

Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly.

“Forget it, Flopper!” he said crisply.
“I’ve something better for you to do.
You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute.
I don’t care what you do when you’re resurrected,
but from now on the three of you are dead and buried,
and the police go into mourning for at least six months.”

“What you got for us, Doc?—­something
nice?”—­Helena pushed Pale Face Harry
and the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of
vision as she spoke.

“Yes—­the drinks. Cleggy’s
bringing them,” Madison laughed—­and
opened the door, as the tinkle of glass and a shuffling
footstep sounded without.

Page 6

A man, big, hulking, thick-set and slouching, with
shifty, cunning little black eyes and the face of
a bruiser, his nose bent over and almost flattened
down on one cheek, entered the room, carrying four
glasses on a tin tray. He set down the tray, and,
as he lifted the glasses from it and placed them on
the table, he leered around at the little group.

“Say”—­Cleggy put his forefinger
significantly to the side of his nose—­“say,
can’t youse let a sport in on—­”

“Clear out!” Doc Madison broke in quite
as suavely as before—­but there was a sudden
glint of steel in the gray eyes as they held the bruiser’s,
and Cleggy, hastily picking up the tray, scuffled from
the room.

Madison watched the door close, then he began to pace
slowly up and down the room.

“Pull the chairs up to the table so we can take
things comfortably,” he directed.

“There ain’t but two,” grinned Pale
Face Harry.

“Oh, well, never mind,” said Madison.

“Slew the couch around and pull that up—­Helena
and I will sit on the head of it.”

Still pacing up and down the length of the room, his
hands in his pockets, Doc Madison watched the others
as they carried out his directions; and then, suddenly,
as he neared the door, his hand shot out, wrenched
the door open, and, quick as a panther in its spring,
he was in the hall without.

There was a yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of
rending bannisters, an instant’s silence, then
a heavy thud—­and then Cleggy’s voice
from somewhere below in a choice and fervent flow
of profanity.

Doc Madison re-entered the room, closed the door,
dispassionately arranged a disordered cuff, brushed
a few particles of dust from his sleeves and shoulder,
and, this done, started toward the table—­and
stopped.

Helena had swung herself to the table edge, and, glass
in hand, dangling her neatly shod little feet, was
smoking a cigarette, her brown hair with a glint of
amber in it, her dark eyes veiled now by their heavy
lashes; on the other side of the table Pale Face Harry
coughed, as, with sleeve rolled back, he was intent
on the hypodermic needle he was pushing into his arm;
while the Flopper, his eyes with a dog-like admiration
in them fixed on Madison, stood facing the door, a
grotesque, unpleasant figure, unkempt, unshaven, furtive-faced,
his rags hanging disreputably about him, his trousers
with their frayed edges, now that he stood upright,
reaching far above his boot tops and flagrantly exposing
his wretched substitutes for socks.

Doc Madison reached thoughtfully into his pocket,
brought out a silver cigarette case, and carefully
selected a cigarette from amongst its fellows.

Page 7

“Yes; Cleggy was right,” he said softly,
tapping the end of the cigarette on his thumb nail.
“You’re the real thing—­the real,
real thing.”

—­II—­

A NEW CULT

Doc Madison swung Helena lightly down from the table
to the head of the couch, sat down beside her, one
arm circling her waist, and motioned the Flopper to
a chair—­then he leaned forward and watched
Pale Face Harry critically, as the latter carefully
replaced the shining little hypodermic in its case.

“Harry,” said he abruptly, jerking his
free hand toward the hypodermic, “could you
give up that dope-needle?”

“Sure, I could—­if I wanted to!”
asserted Pale Face Harry defiantly.

“That’s good,” said Madison cheerfully.
“Because you’ll have to.”

“Eh?”—­Pale Face Harry stared
at Doc Madison in amazement.

“Because you’ll have to—­by
and by,” said Madison coolly. “And
how about that cough—­can you quit coughing?”

Pale Face Harry, with jaw dropped, accentuating the
gaunt leanness of his hollow-cheeked, emaciated face,
gazed at Doc Madison with a curious mingling of incredulity
and affront—­and coughed.

“Say,” he inquired grimly, “what’s
the answer?”

Doc Madison took his arm from Helena’s waist,
pulled a newspaper from his pocket, spread it out
on the table—­and his manner changed suddenly—­enthusiasm
was in his eyes, his voice, his face.

“I’ve steered you three through a few
deals,” said he impressively, “that have
sized up big enough to keep you out of the raw vaudeville
turn you, Harry, and you, Flopper, are so fond of,
and that would have put Helena here on easy street,
if you hadn’t blown in all you got about ten
minutes after you got your hands on it—­but
I’ve got one here that sizes up so big you wouldn’t
be able to spend the money fast enough to close out
your bank account if you did your damnedest! Get
that? It’s the greatest cinch that ever
came down from the gateway of heaven—­and
that’s where it came from—­heaven.
It couldn’t have come from anywhere else—­it’s
too good. And it’s new, bran new—­it’s
never had the string cut or the wrapper taken off.
It’s got anything that was ever run beaten by
more laps than there are in the track, and it’s
got a purse tied on to the end of it that’s
the biggest ever offered since Adam. But you’ve
got to work for it, and that’s what I brought
you here for to-night—­to learn your little
pieces so’s you can say ’em nice and cute
when you get up on the platform before the audience.”

The Flopper’s tongue made a greedy circuit of
his upper and under lips, and he hitched his chair
closer to the table.

“Listen,” said Doc Madison, his voice
lowered a little. “I found this tucked
away as a filler in a corner of the newspaper this
evening. It’s headed, ‘A New Cult,’
with an interrogation mark after it. Now listen,
while I read it:”

A newcult?

Needley, Maine, offers no attraction
for aspiring young medical men. One who
tried it recently, and who pulled down his shingle
in disgust after a week, says competition is
too strong, as the village is obsessed with the
belief that they have a sort of faith-healer
in their midst to whom is attributed cures of all
descriptions stretching back for a generation
or more. The healer, he adds, who rejoices
in the name of the Patriarch and lives in solitude
a mile or so from the village, is something of an anomaly
in himself, being both deaf and dumb. We—­

“But that’s all that interests us,”
said Doc Madison, as he stopped reading abruptly and
lifted his head to scrutinize his companions quizzically.

Pale Face Harry’s eyes had lost their gleam
and dulled—­he gaped reproachfully at Doc
Madison. Helena’s small mouth drooped downward
in a disappointed moue. Only the Flopper
evidenced enthusiastic response.

“Sure!” he chortled. “Sure
t’ing! I see. De old geezer’ll
have a pile of shekels hid away, an’ he lives
by his lonesome a mile from de town. We sneaks
down dere, croaks de guy wid de queer monaker, an’
beats it wid de shekels—­sure!”

Doc Madison turned a sad gray eye on the Flopper.

“Flopper,” said he pathetically, “your
soul, like your bones, runs to rank realism.
No; we don’t ’croak de guy’—­we
cherish him, we nurse him, we fondle him. He’s
our one best bet, and we fold him to our breasts tenderly,
and we protect him from all harm and danger and sudden
death.”

The Flopper blinked a little helplessly.

“Mabbe,” said the Flopper, “I got
de wrong dope. Some of dem words you read I ain’t
hip to. Wot’s anymaly mean?”

“Anomaly?”—­Doc Madison reached
for his glass, tossed off the contents and set it
down. “It means, Flopper, in this particular
instance,” he said gravely, “that there
shouldn’t be any interrogation point after the
heading.”

Again the Flopper blinked helplessly—­and
his fingers picked uncertainly at the stubble on his
chin. The other two gazed disconsolately—­and
Helena a little pityingly as well—­at Doc
Madison.

Doc Madison flung out his arms suddenly.

Page 9

“What’s the matter with you all?”
he demanded sarcastically. “You look as
though your faces pained you! What’s the
matter with you? You’re bright enough ordinarily,
Helena, and, Harry, you’re no dub—­what’s
the matter with you? Can’t you see it—­can’t
you see it! Why, it’s sticking out a mile—­it’s
waiting for us! The whole plant’s
there and all we’ve got to do is get steam under
the boilers. We’ll have ’em coming
for the cure from every State in the Union, and begging
us to let them throw their diamond tiaras at us for
a look-in at the shrine. Don’t you see
it—­can’t you get it—­can’t
you get it!”

“Sure—­the cure,” said Doc Madison
earnestly. “The new cult—­that’s
us. Get the people talking, show ’em something,
and you’ll have to put up fences and ‘keep
off the grass’ signs to stop the lame and the
halt and the blind and the neurasthenics from crowding
and suffocating to death for want of air. We’ll
start a shrine down there that’ll be a winner,
and the railroads will be running excursion-rate pilgrimages
inside of two months.”

Pale Face Harry’s chair creaked, as, like the
Flopper, he now crowded it in toward the table.

“I get you!” said he feverishly.
“I get you! I’ve read about them
shrines—­only you gotter have churches, and
a carload of crutches, and that sort of thing laying
around.”

Doc Madison smiled pleasantly.

“Yes; you’ve got me, Harry—­only
we’ll do the stage setting a little differently.
Mostly what is required is—­faith. Get
them going on that, and everybody that’s sick
or near-sick in this great United States, that’s
got the swellest collection of boobs and millionaires
on earth, will swarm thitherward like bees—­there
won’t be any one left in the sanatoriums throughout
the length of this broad land of freedom but the bell
boys and the elevator men. Get them going, and
all we’ve got to do is look out we don’t
let anything get by us in the crush—­a snowball
rolling down hill will size up like a plugged nickel
alongside of a twenty-dollar gold piece when it gets
to the bottom, compared with what we start rolling.”

“I’ve got you, too,” said Helena.
“But I don’t see where the faith is coming
from, or how you’re going to get them coming.
You’ve got to show them—­you said
so yourself—­even the boobs. How are
you going to do that?”

“Well,” said Doc Madison placidly, “we’ll
start the show with—­a miracle. I haven’t
thought of anything more effective than that so far.”

“A what?” inquired Pale Face Harry, with
a grin.

“A miracle,” repeated Doc Madison imperturbably.
“A miracle—­with the Flopper here
in the star role. The Flopper goes down there
all tied up in knots, the high priest, alias the deaf
and dumb healer, alias the Patriarch, lays his soothing
hands upon him, the Flopper uncoils into something
that looks like a human being—­and the trumpets
blow, the band plays, and the box office opens for
receipts.”

Page 10

Helena slid from her seat, and, with hands on the
edge of the table, advanced her piquant little face
close to Doc Madison’s, staring at him, breathing
hard.

“Say that again,” she gasped. “Say
that again—­say it just once more.”

Pale Face Harry’s hand, trembling visibly with
emotion, was thrust out across the table.

“Put it there, Doc,” he whispered hoarsely.

The Flopper, practical, earnestly so, lifted his right
arm, wriggled it a little and began to twist it around,
as though it were on a pivot at the elbow, preparatory
to drawing it in, a crippled thing, toward his chin.

Doc Madison reached out hurriedly and stopped him.

“Here, that’ll do, Flopper,” he
said quietly. “You don’t need any
rehearsal to hold your job—­you’re
down for the number and your check’s written
out.”

“Swipe me!” said the Flopper to the universe.
“I can smell de pine woods of Maine in me nostrils
now. When does I beat it, Doc—­to-morrer?”

Doc Madison laughed.

“No, Flopper, not to-morrow—­nor for
several to-morrows—­not till the bill-posters
get through, and the stage is dark, and you can hear
a pin drop in the house. I don’t want you
camping out and catching cold and missing any of the
luxuries you’re accustomed to, so I’ll
start along ahead in a day or so myself and see what
kind of accommodations I can secure.”

“I was thinking about the deaf and dumb man,”
she said slowly. “How about him, when we
pull this off—­will he stand for it—­and
what’ll he do?”

“Aw!” said Pale Face Harry impatiently.
“He don’t count! He’ll have
bats in his belfry anyway, and if he ain’t he’ll
go off his chump for fair getting stuck on himself
when he sees the stunt he’ll think he’s
done. He’ll be looking for the wings between
his shoulder blades, and hunting for the halo around
his head.”

“Harry is waking up,” observed Doc Madison
affably. “That’s about the idea,
Helena. I haven’t seen the Patriarch yet,
but I don’t imagine from his description that
it’ll be very hard to make him believe in himself.
He doesn’t stand for anything—­we don’t
deal him any cards—­he’s just the
kitty that circles around with the jackpots while we
annex the chips.”

Doc Madison reached into his vest pocket, took out
a penknife whose handle was gold-chased, opened it,
and very carefully cut the article he had read from
the paper.

“Flopper,” said he, “you’ve
heard of gold bonds, haven’t you?”

The Flopper’s eyes gleamed an eloquent response.

“Only you’ve never had any, eh?”
supplied Doc Madison.

“Where’d I get ’em?” inquired
the Flopper, with some bitterness.

“Right here,” smiled Doc Madison, handing
him the clipping. “Here’s a trainload
and a bank vault full of them combined. Put it
away, Flopper, and don’t lose it. Lose
anything you’ve got first—­lose your
life. It’s worth a private car to you with
a buffet full of fizz, and Sambo to wait on you for
the rest of your life. Get that? Don’t
lose it!”

Page 11

The Flopper tucked the clipping into the mysterious
recess of his shirt.

“Say,” he said earnestly, “if you
say so, Doc, it’ll be here when dey plant me.”

“All right, Flopper,” nodded Doc Madison.
“And now let’s get down to cases.
I’ve been able to pay my club dues lately, and
there’s money enough on deck to buy the costumes
and put the show on the road. I start for Needley
as soon as I can get away. When I’m ready
for the support, you three will hear from me—­and
in the meantime you lay low. Nothing doing—­understand?
You’ll get all the lime-light you want before
you’re through, and it’s just as well
not to show up so familiar when they throw the spot
on you that even the school kids will know the date
of your birth, and the population will start in squabbling
over the choice of reserved niches for you in the
Hall of Fame. See?”

The Flopper, Pale Face Harry and Helena nodded their
heads with one accord.

“Give us the whole lay, Doc,” urged Pale
Face Harry. “And give it to us quick.”

“Me mouth’s waterin’,” observed
the Flopper, licking his lips again.

Helena lighted another cigarette, and swung herself
back to her perch on the head of the couch.

Doc Madison surveyed the three with mingled admiration
and delight.

“The world is ours!” he murmured softly.

“Oh, hurry up and give us the rest of it,”
purred Helena. “We know we’re an
all-star cast, all right.”

“Very good,” said Doc Madison—­and
laughed. “Well then, the order of your
stage cues will depend on circumstances and what turns
up down there, but we’ll start with the Flopper
now. First of all, Flopper, you’ve got
to have a name. What’s your real name—­what
did they decorate you with at the baptismal font back
in the dark ages?”

The Flopper scrubbed at his very dirty chin with a
very dirty thumb and forefinger.

“I dunno,” said the Flopper anxiously.

“Well, never mind,” said Doc Madison reassuringly.
“Maybe you are blessed above most people—­you
can pick one out for yourself. What’ll it
be?”

The Flopper’s thumb and forefinger scratched
desperately for a moment, then his face lighted with
inspiration.

“Swipe me!” said he excitedly. “I
got it—­Jimmy de Squirm.”

Doc Madison shook his head gravely.

“No, Flopper, I’m afraid not,” he
said gently. “That’s another weak
point in your interpretation of the role, that I’ll
come to in a minute. We’ll give you an
Irish name by way of charity—­it’ll
help to make your classical English sound like brogue.
We’ll call you Coogan—­Michael Coogan—­that
lets you off with plain Mike in times of stress.”

“I didn’t mean it”—­Doc
Madison’s gray eyes twinkled. “You
are waking up, too, Helena. I mean, Flopper,
you’ve got to remember that you were born twisted
up into the same shape you are in when you hit Needley.
You come from—­let’s see—­we’ll
have to have a big city where the next door neighbors
pass each other with a vacant stare. Ever been
in Chicago?”

Page 12

“Well, all right—­New York it is,
then,” agreed Doc Madison. “You’re
poor, but respectable—­and that brings us
to the other point. Before you go down there,
Helena’s going to start a little night-school
with a grammar, and teach you to paddle along the
fringe of the great American language so’s you
won’t fall in and get wet all over every time
you open your mouth.”

“My!” exclaimed Helena. “Won’t
that be nice!”

“I hope so,” said Doc Madison drily.
“And don’t run away with the idea that
I’m joking about this—­that goes.
I don’t expect to make a silver-tongued orator
out of you, Flopper, and perhaps not even a purist—­but
I hope to eradicate a few minor touches of Bad Land
vernacular from your vocabulary.”

“I’ve gotcher—­swipe me!”
grinned the Flopper. “Me at school!
Say, wouldn’t that put a smile on de maps of
de harness bulls, an’ de dips, an’ de
lags doin’ spaces up de river!”

“Quite so,” admitted Doc Madison pleasantly.

“You won’t laugh when I get through with
you,” remarked Helena, her eyes on the curl
of smoke from her cigarette.

“There’s just one more thing,” went
on Doc Madison, “and I’m through with
you, Flopper. Don’t come down there looking
like a skate—­that’s too raw.
Get new clothes and a shave—­and keep shaved.
And from the minute you buy your ticket, you keep
your bones, or whatever a beneficent nature has given
you in place of them, out of joint—­see?”

“I’m hip,” declared the Flopper—­and
the dog-like admiration for Doc Madison burned in
his eyes. “Say, Doc, youse are de—­”

“Never mind, Flopper,” Madison cut in
brightly. “It’s getting late.
Now, Harry, about you. You’ve got a name,
I believe. Evans, isn’t it? Yes—­well,
that will do. Now, don’t kill yourself at
it, but the more you work your dope needle overtime
before you start, and the harder you cough when you
first land there the better. We’ve got to
have variety, you know. You’re a physical
wreck with the folks back home sending the casket
and trimmings after you on the next train in care of
the station agent.”

“You certainly do,” said Helena cheerfully,
beating a tattoo with her heels on the end of the
couch.

Pale Face Harry scowled.

“I ain’t no artist with the paint,”
he sniffed.

“I don’t paint,” said Helena sweetly.
“It’s rouge.”

“Are you through?” inquired Doc Madison
patiently. “Because, if you are, I’ll
go on. When the train whistles for Needley, Harry,
you put the soft pedal on the dope—­that
ought to help some. And then you begin to taper
that cough off and become a cure—­that’s
all.”

“I ain’t like the Flopper,” said
Pale Face Harry ruefully. “I told you once
I can’t stop the hack, and I ask you again how’m
I going to?”

Page 13

“No,” said Doc Madison coolly, “it’s
up to you. You’ve got to try, and if you
can’t stop altogether you can make yourself scarce
when you feel the fit coming on—­you won’t
have to climb up on the grandstand and cough in people’s
faces, will you?”

“He might carry a screen around with him and
cough behind that,” volunteered Helena.
“That’s enough about the Flopper and Pale
Face—­what about muh? Where do I get
off?”

“You?” said Doc Madison calmly. “Oh,
you’re a moral neurasthenic.”

“And what’s that when it’s at home?”
demanded Helena sharply.

Doc Madison threw out his hands in a comically helpless,
impotent gesture.

“It’s what we need to keep up the standard
of variety,” he said. “We’re
playing to the masses. Don’t you like the
role, Helena—­it’s the leading woman’s.”

“What do I do?” countered Helena non-committingly.

“Do?” echoed Doc Madison. “Why,
you go down there like a whole parade and a gorgeous
pageant rolled into one, in feathers and paint and
diamond boulders in your ears—­and you come
out of it in a gingham apron and coy sunbonnet as
sweet sixteen.”

“Oh!” said Helena—­and her eyes
were on the curl of smoke from her cigarette again.

“Say,” said Pale Face Harry suddenly,
evidently still worried about his cough, “we
ain’t going to have no easy cinch of this.”

“No,” said Doc Madison, with a grim smile;
“you’re not! It’s going to be
the hardest work any of you have ever done—­you’ve
got to lead decent lives for awhile.”

“When we get through with this, if I ain’t
handed in my checks before,” he said dreamily,
“it’s mine for a brownstone on the Avenue,
and one of them life-size landscapes with a shack
on it for the season down to Pa’m Beach that
they call country cottages. I’ll dress the
ginks that scrub the horses down in solid gold braid,
and put the corpse of chamber ladies in Irish lace—­I
bust into society, marry a duke’s one and only,
and swipe her coronet for my manly brow. Did you
ask me anything, Doc?”

“Swipe me!” said the Flopper. “Me
in me private Pullman in a plush seat an’ anudder
to put me feet in, an’ me thumbs in de armholes
of me vest. I wears a high polished lid an’
a red tie, an’ scatters simoleans outer de window
in me travels to the gazaboes on de platforms as I
pass—­an’ den I joins Tammany Hall
so’s I can stick me fingers to me nose every
time I sees a cop.”

Page 14

“Flopper,” said Doc Madison in an awed
voice, “the honor is all mine.”

Helena went off into a peal of rippling, silvery,
contagious laughter, and her little heels again beat
an exuberant tattoo on the end of the couch.

“Yes?” invited Doc Madison, smiling at
her.

“I’m seeing them coming,” said Helena—­and
one heel went through the cretonne upholstery of the
couch.

“Good!” said Doc Madison—­and
from the inside pocket of his coat he pulled out a
package of crisp, new, yellow-backed bills. “You
understand that down there none of you ever heard of
each other or of me before, and you drop the ’doc’—­bury
it! My name is John G. Madison—­G.
for Garfield.” His fingers passed deftly
over the edges of the bills. He pushed a little
pile toward the Hopper, another toward Pale Face Harry,
and tucked the remainder into his coat pocket again.
“That’ll do for expenses,” he said.
“And now, if you understand everything, principally
that you’re to go to church Sundays till you
hear from me, and you’re quite satisfied with
the lay, we’ll adjourn, sine die, to Needley.”

Helena was holding out a very dainty hand, with pink,
wiggling fingers.

“I’ll need, oh, ever so much more than
they will,” she declared, with a bewitching
pout. “And, please, I’m waiting very
patiently.”

Doc Madison laughed.

“By and by, Helena,” he said, patting
her hand. “Well, Flopper, well, Harry—­what
do you say?”

The Flopper pushed back his chair and stood up hesitantly
like a man unexpectedly called upon for an after-dinner
speech. He stood there awkwardly a moment gazing
at Doc Madison, his tongue slowly circling his lips;
then, with a gulp, as though words to express his feelings
were utterly beyond him, he turned and started for
the door.

Pale Face Harry, as he rose, shoved out his hand.

“I don’t deserve my luck to be in on this,”
he said modestly. “Only, Doc, push it along
on the high gear, will you—­I ain’t
going to be able to sleep thinking about it.”
He looked at Helena a little undecidedly—­and
compromised on brevity. “’Night, Helena,”
he flung out.

“Oh, good-night, Harry,” she smiled.

The Flopper turned at the door and came back a few
steps into the room.

“All right, Flopper,” said Doc Madison
gravely. “When you’ve joined Tammany
Hall—­good-night.” He followed
across the room, and from the doorway watched the
two descend the stairs. “Good-night,”
he said again, then closed the door and came back
into the room. “Well, Helena?” he
remarked tentatively.

“Well—­Garfield?”—­Helena
clasped her hands around one knee and rocked gently.

“I’m busy thinking about The Great American
Play,” she said pertly. “There’s
one thing you forgot.”

Page 15

“What’s that?” he asked, still smiling.

“The curtain on the last act,” she said.
“The getaway.”

Doc Madison shook his head.

“Nothing doing!” he returned. “There’s
no getaway. It’s safe—­so safe
that there’s nothing to it. We don’t
guarantee anything, and there’s no entrance
fee to the pavilion—­all contributions are
strictly voluntary.”

“That’s all right,” said Helena.
“But of course we can’t really cure them.
We can get them going hard enough to make them think
they are for awhile, but after they’ve thrown
away their crutches and got back home—­what
then?”

“Not according to statistics,” replied
Doc Madison, and his lips twitched quizzically at
the corners. “According to statistics they’ll
buy another crutch and come back to buck the tiger
again. Say, Helena, to-morrow, you go up to the
public library and read up on shrines—­they’ve
been running since the ark—­and they’re
running still. You never heard any howl about
them, did you? What’s the answer to those
cures?”

“It’s faith,” said Doc Madison,
“and it doesn’t matter what the basis of
it is. Faith, Helena, faith—­get
that? And we’re going to imbue them with
a faith that’ll set them crazy and send them
into hysterics. And talk about relics! Haven’t
we got one? Look at the Patriarch! Can’t
you see the whole town yelling ‘I told you so!’
and swopping testimonials hard enough to crowd the
print down so fine, if you tried to get it all into
the papers, that you’d have to use a magnifying
glass to read it, once we’ve pulled off the
miracle? Don’t you worry about the getaway.
If there’s any sign of anything like that, you
and I, Helena, will be taking moonlight rides in the
gondolas of Venice long before it breaks.”

Helena choked—­and began to laugh deliciously.

Doc Madison stared at her for a moment whimsically—­then
he, too, burst into a laugh.

“Oh, Lord!” he gurgled. “It’s
rich, isn’t it?” And sweeping Helena off
the couch and into his arms, he began to dance around
and around the table. “Ring-around-a-rosy!”
he cried. “We haven’t done so bad
in the misty past, but here’s where we cross
to the enchanted shore and play on jewelled harps
with golden strings and—­”

“Is that all?” gasped Helena, laughing
and breathless, as at last she pulled herself away.

“No,” panted Doc Madison. “There’s
a table I’ve reserved up at the Rivoli that’s
waiting for us now. We’re about to part
for days and days, lady mine, that’s the tough
luck of it, but we’ll make a night of it to-night
anyway—­what?”

“Needley!”—­the train
conductor of the Bar Harbor Express, collecting the
transportation, threw the word at Madison as though
it were a personal affront.

The tone seemed to demand an apology from Madison—­and
Madison apologized.

“Health,” he said apologetically.
“Perfect rest and quiet—­been overdoing
it, you know.”

“We’re five minutes late now,” grunted
the conductor uncompromisingly and, to Madison, quite
irrelevantly, as he passed on down the aisle.

Somehow, this inspired Madison to consult his timetable.
He drew it from his pocket, ran his eye down the long
list of stations—­and stopped at “Needley.”
Needley had an asterisk after it. By consulting
a block of small type at the bottom of the page, he
found a corresponding asterisk with the words:
“Flag station. Stops only on signal, or
to discharge eastbound passengers from Portland.”

John Garfield Madison went into the smoking compartment
of the car for a cigar—­several cigars—­until
Needley was reached some two hours later, when the
dusky attendant, as he pocketed Madison’s dollar,
set down his little rubber-topped footstool with a
flourish on a desolate and forbidding-looking platform.

Madison was neither surprised nor dismayed—­the
parlor-car conductor, the train conductor and the
timetable had in no way attempted to deceive him—­he
was only cold. He turned up his coat collar—­and
blew on his kid-gloved fingers.

As far as he could see everything was white with a
thin layer of snow—­he kicked some of it
off his toes onto the unshovelled platform. The
landscape was disconsolately void of even a vestige
of life, there was not a sign of habitation—­just
woods of bare trees, except the firs, whose green
seemed out of place.

“I have arrived,” said John Garfield Madison
to himself, “at a cemetery.”

There was a very small station, and through the window
he caught sight of a harassed-faced, red-haired man.
There was a thump, another one, a very vicious one—­and
Madison stirred uneasily—­the train, with
its five minutes’ delinquency hanging over it,
was already moving out, as his trunks, from the baggage
car ahead, shot unceremoniously to the platform.
Madison watched a man, the sole occupant of the platform
apart from himself, save the trunks from rolling under
the wheels of the train; then his eyes fastened on
a rickety, two-seated wagon, drawn by a horse that
at first glance appeared to earn all it got.

Page 17

The train left the platform—­and left quite
as uninviting a perspective on the other side of the
track as had previously greeted Madison’s restricted
view. But now the man who had salvaged his baggage
came down the platform toward him. Madison inspected
the approaching figure with interest. The man
ambled along without haste, his jaws wagging industriously
upon his tobacco, his iron-gray chin whiskers, from
the wagging, flapping like a burgee in a breeze.
He wore a round fur cap, quite bare of fur at the
edges where the pelt showed shiny, and a red woollen
tippet was tied round his neck and knotted at the back
with the ends dangling down over his coat. The
coat itself, a long one of some fuzzy material, with
huge side pockets into which the man’s hands
were plunged, reached to the cavernous tops of jackboots
where the nether ends of his trousers were stowed
away.

The man halted before Madison, and, reaching a mittened
hand under his chin, reflectively lifted his whiskers
to an acute angle, while his blue eyes over the rims
of steel-bowed spectacles wandered from Madison to
Madison’s dress-suit case and back to Madison
again.

“Be you goin’ to git off here?”
he inquired.

Madison smiled at him engagingly.

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t
care to have it known, but if you can keep a secret—­”

“Hee-hee!” tittered the other. “Now
that’s right smart, that be. Waren’t
expectin’ nobody to meet you, was you? I
ain’t heerd of none of the folks lookin’
for visitors.”

“No,” said Madison. “But there’s
a hotel in the town, isn’t there?”

“Two of ’em,” said the other.
“The Waalderf an’ the Congress, but the
Waalderf ain’t done a sight of business since
we got pro’bition in the State an’ has
kinder got run down. I reckon the Congress’ll
suit you best if you ain’t against payin’
a mite more, which I reckon you ain’t for I
see you come down in the parler car.”

“And what,” asked Madison, “does
the Congress charge?”

“Well,” said the other, “ordinary,
it’s a dollar a day or five dollars a week,
but this bein’ off season an’ nobody there,
’twouldn’t surprise me if Walt’ud
kind of shade the price for you—­Waalderf’s
three an’ a half a week. Them your duds
up the platform? I’ll drive you over for
forty cents. What was it you said your name was?”

“Forty cents is a most disinterested offer,
and I accept it heartily,” said Madison affably.
“And my name’s Madison—­John
Garfield Madison, from New York.”

Hiram Higgins backed the democrat around, roped the
baggage onto the tail-board, picked up the hungry-looking
mail-bag from where the mail clerk had slung it from
the car to the platform, threw it down in front of
the dashboard, and got in after it. Madison clambered
into the back seat, and they bumped off along the
road.

Page 18

“Had a mite of snow night before last,”
observed Mr. Higgins, pointing it out with his whip,
as he settled himself comfortably. “Kinder
reckoned we’d got rid of it for good till next
fall till this come along, but you can’t never
tell. What was it you said brought you down here,
Mr. Madison?”

Madison smiled.

“Rest and quiet—­complete change,”
he said. “Nervous breakdown, according
to the doctors—­that’s what they always
call it, you know, when they can’t find any
other name for it. I’ve been overdoing it,
I suppose.”

“Be that so!” returned Mr. Higgins sympathetically.
“I want to know! Well, now, that’s
too bad! Lookin’ for quiet, be you?
Well, I reckon mabbe folks don’t scurry around
here quite so lively as they do in some of the bigger
towns like Noo York, but there’s a tolerable
lot goin’ on most every week, church festivals,
an’ spellin’ bees, an’ such.
Folks here is right hospitable, but you ain’t
in no way obliged to join in if you don’t feel
up to it. I’ll explain matters to ’em,
an’—­” Hiram Higgins stopped,
excitedly gathered reins and whip into one hand, and
with the other smote his knee a resounding whack.
“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed. “An’
I never thought of it until this minute! I reckon
you’ve come to just the right place, and just
as soon as you get settled you go right out an’
see the Patriarch—­you won’t need no
more doctor, an’ folks up your way won’t
know when you go back.”

“The Patriarch?” inquired Madison, with
a puzzled air. “Who is he?”

“Why,” said Mr. Higgins, “he’s—­he’s
the Patriarch. Been curin’ us folks around
here longer’n any one can remember—­just
does it by faith, too.”

Madison shook his head slowly.

“I might just as well be frank with you, Mr.
Higgins,” he said. “I’ve never
taken much stock in faith cure and that sort of thing.”

They turned a right-angled bend in the road, disclosing
a straggling hamlet in a hollow below, and, farther
away in the distance, a sweep of ocean.

“Most any kind,” said Mr. Higgins.
“There’s Needley now. All you’ve
got to do is ask the first person you see about him.”

“Yes,” said Madison, “but take yourself,
for instance. Did this Patriarch ever do anything
for you?”

“He did,” said Mr. Higgins impressively.
“An’ ’twasn’t but last week.
I’m glad you asked me. For two nights I
couldn’t sleep. Had the earache powerful.
Poured hot oil an’ laud’num into it, an’
kept a hot brick rolled up in flannel against it,
but didn’t do no good. Then Mrs. Higgins
says, ‘Hiram, why in the land’s sake don’t
you go out an’ see the Patriarch?’ An’
I hitched right up, an’ every step that horse
took I could feel it gettin’ better, an’
I wasn’t five minutes with the Patriarch before
I was cured, an’ I ain’t had a twinge since.”

Page 19

“It certainly looks as though there were something
in that,” admitted Madison cautiously.

Hiram Higgins smiled a world of tolerance.

“‘Tain’t worth mentionin’
alongside some of the things he’s done,”
he said deprecatingly. “You’ll hear
about ’em fast enough.”

“What’s the local doctor say about it?”
asked Madison.

“There ain’t enough pickin’s to
keep a doctor here, though some of ’em’s
tried,” chuckled Mr. Higgins. “Have
to have ’em for some things, of course—­an’
then he drives over from Barton’s Mills, seven
miles from here.”

“And do all the people in Needley believe
in the Patriarch?”—­Madison’s
voice was full of grave interest.

“Well,” said Mr. Higgins, “to be
plumb downright honest with you, they don’t.
Folks as was born here an’ are old inhabitants
do, but the Holmes, bein’ newcomers, is kinder
set in their ways. They come down here eight
years ago last August with new-fangled notions, which
they ain’t got rid of yet. You can see
the consequences for yourself—­got a little
boy, twelve year old, walking around lame on a crutch—­an’
I reckon he always will. Doctor looks at him
every time he comes over from Barton’s Mills,
but it don’t do no good. Folks tried to
get the Holmes to take him out to the Patriarch’s
till they got discouraged. ’Pears old man
Holmes kinder got around to a common sense view of
it, but the women folks say Mrs. Holmes is stubborner
than all git-out, an’ that old man Holmes’
voice ain’t loud enough to be heerd when she
gets goin’. ’Tain’t but fair
to mention ’em, as I dunno of any one else that’s
an exception.” Mr. Higgins pointed ahead
with his whip. “See them woods over there
beyond the town?”

“Yes,” said Madison.

“That’s where the Patriarch lives,”
said Mr. Higgins. “On the other side of
’em, down by the seashore. An’ here
we be most home. Folks’ll be glad to see
you, Mr. Madison, and now you’re here I hope
you’ll make a real smart stay—­we’ll
try to make you feel to home.”

“Thank you,” said Madison cordially.
“I haven’t any idea, of course, how long
I’ll be here—­it all depends on circumstances.”

“No,” said Mr. Higgins; “I don’t
suppose you have. Anyway, I hope you’ll
take a notion to go out an’ see what the Patriarch
can do for you. An’ now you ain’t
told me yet which hotel you’re goin’ to.”

“Oh!” said Madison gravely. “Well,
since you recommend it, I guess we’d better
make it the Congress.”

—­IV—­

THE PATRIARCH

“Bet you a cookie,” shrilled Hiram Higgins,
in what he meant to be a breathless whisper, “that
there’s where he’s goin’ now—­only
he don’t want us to know he’s give in.”

“Get out!” retorted Mr. Higgins.
“No, he can’t neither. He ain’t
feelin’ no ways perky, any one can see that,
an’ I’m tickled most to pieces that he’s
come ’round—­I’ve took up with
him consid’rable, I have. Patriarch’ll
just make a new-born critter outer him—­you
watch through the window where he goes. Bet you
a quarter that’s what he’s up to!”

Page 20

John Garfield Madison, outside on the veranda of the
Congress Hotel, smiled at the words, as he lighted
his cigar and turned up his coat collar. He stepped
off the veranda, crossed the little lawn to the village
street, and began to saunter nonchalantly and indifferently
oceanwards. He did not look around—­he
had no desire to bring consternation to the massed
faces of the leading citizens flattened against the
window panes—­but he chuckled inwardly as
he pictured them. There would be Hiram Higgins,
postmaster and town constable, Walt Perkins, hotel
man and town moderator, Lem Hodges, selectman, assessor
and overseer of the poor, Nathan Elmes, likewise selectman,
assessor and overseer of the poor, and Cale Rodgers,
school committee-man and proprietor of the general
store.

Madison sauntered slowly along.

“I have arrived,” he said, “not
at a cemetery, but at an El Dorado and a land flowing
with milk and honey.”

There was a humorous pucker around the corners of
Madison’s eyes, as he reviewed his two days’
sojourn in Needley—­spent mostly in the “office”
of the Congress Hotel beside the stove with his feet
up on the wood-box. He had never lacked company—­the
office stove and the spitbox filled with sawdust was
the admitted rendezvous of the chosen spirits who were
still gazing after him from the window. Morning,
afternoon and evening they congregated there, and
he had been promptly admitted to membership in the
select circle. At each sitting they had discussed
the spring planting and the weather, and then inevitably,
led by Hiram Higgins, had resolved themselves into
an “experience” meeting on the Patriarch—­he,
Madison, as a minority leader of one, grudgingly conceding
an occasional point. The sessions had invariably
ended the same way—­Hiram Higgins, with
the back of his hand underneath his chin, would stroke
earnestly at his chin-whiskers, and remark:

“Well, now, Mr. Madison, ’twon’t
do you a mite of harm to go out there an’ see
for yourself. We’ve kinder got to look on
you as one of us, an’ there ain’t no use
in you sufferin’ around with what ails you when
there ain’t no need of it.”

Madison’s replies had been equally void of versatility—­he
would shake his head doubtfully, while his cigar-case
circulated around the group.

Madison sniffed luxuriously at his thoroughbred Havana.
He had passed out of sight of the hotel window now,
and he swung into a brisk walk. It was a mile
to the Patriarch’s by a wagon track through the
woods, that led off from the road to the left just
across the bridge. He had not needed to ask directions.
With magnificent inadvertence Hiram Higgins had mentioned
the exact way to reach the Patriarch’s a dozen
times, if he had once. Also, by now, Madison
had learned all that the town knew about the Patriarch—­which
after all, he reflected with some satisfaction, wasn’t
much. The Patriarch was over eighty years of age,
and he had come, deaf and dumb, to Needley sixty years

Page 21

ago—­nobody knew from where, nor his previous
history, nor his name. They had called him the
Hermit at first, for immediately on his arrival he
had gone out to the shore of the ocean, away from
the village, and built a crude hut there for himself—­which,
in the after years, he had made into a more pretentious
dwelling. The cures had come “kinder gradual-like
an’ took the folks mabbe forty years to get
around to believin’ in him real serious,”
as Hiram Higgins put it; and then, as the Hermit grew
old, and the local reverence for him had become more
deep-seated, they had changed his name to the Patriarch.
That was about all—­but it seemed to suit
Madison, for his smile broadened.

“I wonder,” said he to himself, as he
stepped onto the bridge to cross the little river,
“if I’m not dreaming—­this is
like being let loose in the U.S. Treasury with
nobody looking!”

“Hullo, mister!” piped a young voice suddenly
out of the dusk.

“Hullo!” responded Madison mechanically—­and
turned to watch a small figure, going in the opposite
direction, thump by him on a crutch. Madison
stopped and stared after the cripple—­and
removed his cigar very slowly from his lips.
“That’s that Holmes boy,” he muttered.
“I don’t know as he’d look well
on the platform when the excursion trains get to running.
Wonder if I can’t get a job for his father somewhere
about a thousand miles from here and have the family
move!”

The cripple disappeared down the road, and Madison,
with a sort of speculative flip to the ash of his
cigar, resumed his way. Just across the bridge
he found the wagon track, and turned into it.
It ran through a thick wood of fir and spruce, and
here, apart from now being able to see but little
before him—­he had elected to “steal”
away in the darkness after supper—­he found
the going far from good.

Half curiously, half whimsically, he tried to visualize
the Patriarch from the word pictures that had been
painted around the stove in the hotel office.
The man would be old—­of course. And
to have lived alone for sixty years, to have shunned
human companionship he must have been either mildly
or violently insane to begin with, which would account
for his belief in himself as a healer—­he
would unquestionably, in some form or other, “have
bats in his belfry,” as Pale Face Harry had put
it.

Madison’s brows contracted as he went along.
A man living by himself under such conditions, with
no incentive for the care of his person, not even
the pride engendered by the association of others,
erudite as the standard might be in his vicinity,
was apt to grow very shortly into a somewhat sorry
spectacle. Give him sixty years of this and add
an unbalanced mind, and—­Madison did not
like the picture that now rose up suddenly before
him—­a creature, bent, vapid of face, deaf
and dumb, frowsy of dress, and a world removed from
the thought of a morning bath. It might be picturesque
in a way—­but it wasn’t a way Madison

Page 22

liked. Somehow, he’d have to jerk the old
chap out of his rut and get him rigged up a little
more becomingly, before the trusting public, simple
as they were, were invited down to see the exhibit.
Madison’s dramatic instinct, which was developed
to a keen sense of what the public craved for, rebelled
against any faux pas in the scenic effects.
He fell to designing a costume that would more appropriately
expound the role.

“Got to give ’em something for their money,”
murmured John Garfield Madison. “Some sort
of long, flowing robe now, washed every day, sort of
Grecian effect with a rope girdle, bare feet and sandals—­um-m—­dunno
about the sandals—­don’t want to slop
over, and besides”—­Madison grinned
a little to himself—­“he might kick!”

Still reflecting, but arrived at no conclusion other
than first to size up the Patriarch and see how best
to handle him, Madison reached the end of the wagon
track—­and halted.

It was a little lighter here, now that he had left
the woods, and what appeared to be a sweep of snow-covered
lawn was before him. Around this, forming a perfect
square, was a row of full-grown, magnificent maples—­a
regal hedge, as it were, bordering the four sides—­planted
sixty years ago! Madison’s imagination
fired exhilarantly at the inspiring thought of these
in leaf—­in another few weeks. He shook
hands with himself cordially.

“Behold the amphitheater!” he said.
“This is where we stage the greatest act of
the century!”

Behind the row of trees, directly across the lawn
in front of him, loomed the dark shadow of a long,
low, cottage-like building, and from a window a light
twinkled out between the tree trunks; while from beyond
again came the roll of surf, low, rhythmic, like the
soft accompaniment of orchestral music.

“Wonderful!” breathed Madison. “I
feel,” said he, “as though I had just
had a drink!”

He walked across the lawn, passed between the trees,
and reached the end of the cottage away from where
the light showed in the window.

“The Patriarch being deaf,” he remarked,
“I might as well explore.”

From the row of trees to the cottage was perhaps twenty
feet. The door of the cottage, porticoed with
trellis-work, was in the center of the cottage itself.
Everywhere Madison turned were trellis-work frames
for flowers—­the walls of the cottage were
covered, literally covered, with bare, slumbering
shoots of Virginia creeper. In a little while
now the place would be a veritable paradise.
Madison raised his hat reverently.

“Fancy this on a New York stage!” said
he esthetically, invoking the universe. “Could
you beat it! I could play the Patriarch myself
with this setting, and everybody would fall for it.
There’s nothing to it, nothing to it, but his
make-up—­and I’ll guarantee to take
care of that. And now we’ll have a look
at Aladdin’s lamp and see just what kind of
rubbing up will invoke the genii!”

Page 23

Madison walked along the length of the cottage, past
the door, and, as he reached the lighted window, drew
well away from the wall—­and stared inside.
Surprise and incredulity swept across his features,
and then his face beamed and his gray eyes lighted
with the fire of an artist who sees the elusive imagery
of the Great Picture at last transferred to canvas,
vivid, actual, transcending his wildest hopes.
He was gazing upon the sweetest and most venerable
face he had ever seen.

Here and there within upon the floor were strewn old-fashioned,
round rag mats that would enrapture a connoisseur,
and the floor where it showed between the mats was
scrubbed to a glistening white. The furnishings
were few and homemade, but full of simple artistry—­a
chair or two, and a table, upon which burned a lamp.
In a fireplace, made of stones cemented together,
the natural effect unspoiled by any attempt to hew
the stones into uniformity, a log fire glowed, sputtered,
and now and then leaped cheerily into flame.

Between the table and the fire, half turned toward
Madison, sat the Patriarch. He was reading, his
head bent forward, his book held very close to his
eyes. Hair, a wealth of it, soft, silky and snow-white,
reached just below his coat collar—­a silvery
beard fell far below his book. But it was the
face itself, no single distinguishing feature, neither
the blue eyes, the sensitive lips, nor the broad, fine
forehead, that held Madison’s gaze—­it
seemed to combine something that he had never seen
in a face before, and to look upon it was to be drawn
instantly to the man—­there was purity of
thought and act stamped upon it with a seal ineffaceable,
and there was gentleness there, and sympathy, and
trust, and a simple, unassuming dignity and self-possession—­and,
too, there was a shadow there, a little of sadness,
a little of weariness, a background, a relief, as it
were, a touch such as a genius might conceive to lift
the picture with his brush into wondrous, lingering,
haunting consonance.

Madison’s eyes, slowly, as though loath to leave
the Patriarch’s face, travelled over the gray
homespun suit that clothed the man, the white wristbands
of the home-washed shirt, unstarched, but spotlessly
clean—­and his fancy of flowing, Grecian
robes with rope girdles seemed to hold him up to mockery
as a crude and paltry bungler before the perfect,
unostentatious harmony of reality.

“There’s nothing to it!” whispered
Madison softly to himself. “Nothing to
it! There isn’t a thing left to do—­not
even a chance of making a bluff at earning the money—­it’s
just like stealing it. Why, say, it would
get me if I weren’t behind the scenes—­honest
now, it would!”

Madison drew back from the window and walked toward
the door of the cottage.

“It should take me about fifteen minutes to
establish myself on the basis of a long-lost son with
the Patriarch clinging confidingly around my neck,”
he observed. “If it takes me any longer
than that I’d feel depressed every time I met
myself in the looking-glass.”

Page 24

He reached the cottage door, and, lifting the brass
knocker that shone dimly in the darkness, knocked
once, lifted it to knock again—­and his
hand fell away as he smiled a little foolishly.

“I forgot the Patriarch was deaf,” he
muttered. “Wonder what you’re supposed
to do? Walk right in, or—­”

The door swung suddenly wide open, and upon Madison’s
face, usually so perfectly at its owner’s control,
came a look of stunned surprise. The Patriarch
was standing on the threshold, and, with a gesture
of welcome, was motioning him to enter.

—­V—­

A STRANGE CONVERSATION

Madison, quite in command of himself again in an instant,
stepped, smiling, into the cottage. He took the
Patriarch’s extended hand in a cordial grip
and nodded understandingly as the other, with quick,
rapid motions, touched lips and ears to signify that
he could neither hear nor speak. But, inwardly
puzzled, Madison searched the Patriarch’s face—­was
the other playing a part? Could he hear,
after all—­and perhaps speak as well, if
he wanted to! There was certainly no guile in
the venerable, gentle face—­or was it guile
of a very high order?

The Patriarch closed the door, and drawing his own
armchair to the table offered it to Madison with a
courteous smile.

Madison refused by gently forcing the old man into
it himself, pulled another up to face the Patriarch,
sat down—­and his eyes fixed suddenly on
the ceiling above his head. Swaying slowly back
and forth was a sort of miniature punkah of waving
white canvas. He studied this for a moment, then
his eyes shifted to the Patriarch, who was regarding
him humorously.

The Patriarch rose from his chair, walked to the door,
opened it, moved the knocker up and down—­and
pointed to the ceiling. The canvas was waving
violently now, and Madison traced the cord attachment,
on little pulleys, across the ceiling to where it
ran through the door and was affixed to the knocker
without. It was very simple, even primitive—­every
time the knocker was lifted the cord was pulled and
the canvas waved back and forth. Madison nodded
his head and smiled approvingly, as the Patriarch
once more closed the door and resumed his seat.

Madison leaned back in his chair and allowed his eyes
to stray, not impertinently but with pleased endorsement,
around the room, to permit an unhampered opportunity
for the scrutiny of the blue eyes which he felt upon
him.

“And to think,” he mused reproachfully,
“that I could have doubted him for a single
instant—­he certainly hung one on me that
time.”

The Patriarch reached into the drawer of the table
beside him, took out a slate and pencil, scratched
a few words on the slate and handed both pencil and
slate to Madison.

“Hiram,” said Madison to himself, “is
a man of many parts, and the most useful man I have
ever known. Hiram, by reflected glory, will some
day become famous.” On the slate he replied:
“Yes; that is my name—­John Madison.
It was good of Mr. Higgins to speak of me.”

Page 25

The Patriarch held the slate within a bare inch or
two of his face, and moved it back and forth before
his eyes to follow the lines. As he lowered it,
Madison reached for it politely.

“I am afraid you do not see very well,”
he scribbled. “Shall I write larger?”

Again the Patriarch deciphered the words laboriously;
then he wrote, and handed the slate to Madison.

“I am going blind,” he had written.
“Please write as large as possible.”

“Blind!”—­Madison’s attitude
and expression were eloquent enough not only to be
a perfect interpretation of his exclamation, but to
convey his shocked and pained surprise as well.

The Patriarch bowed his head affirmatively, smiling
a little wistfully.

Madison impetuously drew his chair closer to the other,
laid his hand sympathetically upon the Patriarch’s
sleeve, and, with the slate upon his knee, wrote with
the other hand impulsively:

“I am sorry—­very, very sorry.
Would you care to tell me about it?”

The Patriarch’s face lighted up while reading
the slate, but he shook his head slowly as he smiled
again.

“By and by, if you wish,” he wrote.
“But first about yourself. You are sick—­and
you have come to me for help?”

The slate now passed from hand to hand quite rapidly.

“Yes,” wrote Madison. “Can
you cure me?”

“No,” replied the Patriarch; “not
in your present mental condition.”

“What do you mean?” asked Madison.

“Your question itself implies that you are skeptical.
While that state of mind exists, I can do nothing—­it
depends entirely on yourself.”

“Unquestionably,” wrote the Patriarch,
“if you really put it aside. Faith is the
simplest thing in the world and the most complex—­but
it is fundamental. Without faith nothing is possible;
with faith nothing is impossible.”

“I have never thought much about it,”
he replied upon the slate, after a tactful moment’s
pause. “But I believe that. There is
something here, about the place, about you that inspires
confidence—­I was prepared to cling to my
skepticism when I came in, but I do not feel that way
now. If only I knew you a little better, were
with you a little more, I believe I could have the
faith you speak of.”

“How long do you remain in Needley?” the
Patriarch wrote.

Madison got up from his chair, went slowly to the
fireplace, and, with his back to the Patriarch, stood
watching the crackling logs.

“The old chap’s no fool,” he informed
himself, “even if he is gone a little in one
particular. He certainly does believe in himself
for fair! Wonder where he got his education—­notice
the English he writes? And, say—­going
blind! Fancy that! Santa Claus, you overwhelm
me, you are too bountiful, you are too generous—­you’ll
have nothing left for the next chimney! Deaf
and dumb—­and blind. Really, I do not
deserve this—­I really don’t—­let
me at least tip the hat-boy, or I’ll feel mean.”

Page 26

He turned gravely to the Patriarch; resuming his chair
with an expression on his face as one arrived at a
weighty decision after a mental battle with one’s
self.

“I will stay here until I am cured. I put
myself in your hands. What am I to do?”
he wrote quickly—­and held out his hand almost
anxiously for the other’s assent.

The Patriarch smiled seriously as, after peering at
the slate, he took the outstretched hand and laid
his other one unaffectedly upon Madison’s shoulder.

“Be sure then that I can help you,” wrote
the Patriarch cheerfully. “There is no
course of treatment such as you may, perhaps, imagine.
My power lies in a perfect faith to help you once
you, in turn, have faith yourself—­that
is all. It is but the practical application of
the old dogma that mind is superior to matter.
You must come and see me every day, and we will talk
together.”

“I will come—­gladly,” Madison
replied; and, taking the slate, carefully wiped off
the writing—­as he had previously wiped it
off every time it came into his hands—­with
a damp rag that the Patriarch had taken from the table
drawer when he had produced the slate and pencil.

“This slate racket is the limit,” said
Madison to himself, as his pencil began to move and
screech again; “but I’ve got to get a little
deeper under his vest yet.”

He handed the slate to the Patriarch, and on it were
the words:

“Won’t you tell me something of yourself,
how you came to live here alone, and your name, perhaps?
I do not mean to presume, but I am deeply interested.”

“There is never presumption in kindliness and
sympathy,” answered the Patriarch. “But
my name and story is buried in the past—­perhaps
when I am gone those who care to know may know.
I have not hurt you by refusing to answer?”

“No, indeed!” said Madison politely to
himself. “The element of mystery is one
of the best drawing cards I know—­it’s
got Needley going strong. Far, far be it from
me to tear the veil asunder. I mentioned it only
as a feeler.”

But upon the slate he wrote:

“Far from being hurt, I respect your silence.
But your eyes—­you were to tell me about
them.”

The Patriarch’s face saddened suddenly as he
read the words.

“I have made no secret of it,” he wrote.
“I have been going blind for nearly a year now.
The end, I am afraid, is very near—­within
a few days, perhaps even to-morrow. I think I
should not mind it much myself, for I am very old
and have not a great while longer to live in any case,
but for the time that is left it will mar my usefulness.
I have been able to help the people here and they
have come to depend upon me—­that is my
life. I trust I am not boastful if I say my greatest
joy has been in helping others.”

He had come to the bottom of the slate and held it
out for Madison to read; then wiped it off, and went
on:

“I have dreamed often of a wider field, of reaching
out to help the thousands beyond this little town—­but
I have realized that it could be no more than a dream.
I have been successful here because the people believe
in me and have unquestioning faith in me—­to
go outside amongst strangers would only have been
to be received as a charlatan and faker, or as a poor
deaf and dumb fool at best.”

Page 27

Madison took the slate.

“But if these thousands of others came to you—­what
then?”

The Patriarch’s face glowed.

“It would be a wondrous joy,” he wrote.
“Too wondrous to dwell upon—­because
it could never be. If they came I could help them,
for their very coming would be an evidence of faith—­and
faith alone is necessary. Think of the joy of
helping so many others—­it is the fulness
of life. But let us not dream any more, friend
Madison.”

“Of course,” communed Madison, studying
the illumined face, “he’s slightly touched
in his upper story on the faith stunt; but he’s
in dead earnest, and he’s got the brotherhood-of-man
bug bad. Come to think of it, Hiram did say something
about his ‘sight failing,’ but I didn’t
think it was anything like this. If he’s
going to go finally blind in, say, a week, perhaps
it would be just as well to postpone the opening night
until he does.”

Madison took the slate.

“Stranger things than that have happened,”
he wrote. “I never heard of you before,
yet I am one of the thousands beyond this little town
and I am here—­why not the others?”

The Patriarch shook his head sadly.

“It is but a dream,” he wrote.

Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a long
time before he wrote again; his attitude one of sympathetic
hesitancy as his eyes played over the form and face
before him, while the Patriarch smiled at him with
gentle, patient resignation. Back in Madison’s
fertile brain the germ of an inspiration was developing
into fuller life.

“What will you do here alone when you are blind?”
he asked—­and his face was disturbed and
solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate.

“I need very little,” the Patriarch wrote
back. “You must not worry about me.
My garden supplies nearly all my wants, and there are
many in the village, I am sure, who will help me with
that when the snow is gone.”

“I am quite certain of that,” Madison’s
pencil agreed. “But here in the house you
cannot be alone—­there are so many things
to do, little things that I am sure you have not thought
of—­some one must cook for you, for instance.
You will need a woman’s hand here—­have
you no one, no relative that you can call upon?”

The Patriarch lowered the slate from his eyes, shook
his head a little pathetically, and began to write.

“I do not think they would have cared to come,
even if they were still alive; but they are all gone
many years ago—­except perhaps a grand-niece,
and I do not know what has become of her.”

“Why, that’s just the thing,” wrote
Madison. “Suppose we try to find her?”

Again the Patriarch shook his head.

“I am afraid that would be impossible.
I do not even know that she is alive. I know
only of her birth, and that is twenty years ago.”

“Even that is not hopeless,” wrote Madison
optimistically, and his face as he looked at the Patriarch
was seriously thoughtful. “Where was she
born?”

Page 28

“New York,” the Patriarch answered.

“And I never half appreciated the old town nor
the fulness thereof until I came to Needley!”
said Madison plaintively to the toe of his boot, while
his hand scrawled the inquiry: “What is
her name?”

“Vail,” wrote the Patriarch. “That
was her father’s name. She is my grand-niece
on her mother’s side. I do not know what
they christened her.”

Madison once more, apparently deep in thought, sought
refuge at the fireplace, his hands plunged in his
pockets, his shoulders drawn a little forward, his
back to the Patriarch.

“Fiction,” he assured a crack in the cement
between two stones, “was never, never like this.
It seems to me that I remember the occurrence.
It had grown a little dim with the lapse of time, it
is true; but now that I recall it, it comes back with
remarkable clearness. I am quite sure they christened
her—­Helena. Helena Vail! Now isn’t
that a perfectly lovely name for a novel! And
she’ll be so good to the dear old chap too—­washing
and ironing and cooking for him—­and stealing
out into the woodshed for a drag on her cigarette—­not.
No, my dear, not even that—­this is serious
business.”

He turned, came back to his chair, picked up the slate,
and wrote:

“I have the fortune, or misfortune perhaps,
to be what is commonly called a rich man. Money,
they say, will do anything, and if it will I’ll
find this niece for you.”

The Patriarch’s eyes grew moist as he read the
words, and his hand trembled a little with emotion
as he held the pencil.

“I cannot let you do that,” he protested.
“You are very kind, and it seems almost as though
you had been brought to me providentially at the end
of long years of loneliness for a purpose, when my
hour of helplessness was near; but, indeed, I have
no right to allow you to do this.”

“They tell me in the village,” wrote Madison
in reply, “that you have always refused to accept
a penny for anything you have ever done for them.
I have no doubt you would equally refuse to accept
anything from me for what you may do, and I should
hesitate to offer it however much I felt indebted,
but this is something that you must let me do.
It will make me feel more—­how shall I say
it?—­more as though I had a right to the
privilege of coming here.”

The Patriarch wiped his still moist eyes before he
answered.

“What can I say to you? It does not seem
right that I should let a stranger do so much, and
yet it seems that I should not say no because—­”

Madison was bending over the slate, reading as the
other wrote, and he took the pencil gently from the
Patriarch’s hand.

“You must not look on me any longer as a stranger,”
he wrote. “Let us just consider that it
is all arranged—­only I would strongly advise
making no mention of it until we make sure that she
is alive.”

“I think nothing should be said,” agreed
the Patriarch. “For even if you found her
she might not care to come—­I have little
here to offer a young girl—­few comforts—­the
care of a blind man who is deaf and dumb.”

Page 29

“We’ll see about that when we find her”—­Madison
smiled brightly at the Patriarch, as he wrote.
“Now that’s settled for the time being,
isn’t it?”

The dumb lips moved and both hands reached out to
Madison.

Madison took them in a firm, strong, reassuring clasp,
then shook his finger in a sort of playfully emotional
embarrassment, excellently well done, at the Patriarch—­and
picked up the slate again.

“It is getting late,” he wrote, “and
I must not tire you out. I am afraid you will
think I am far more inquisitive than I have any right
to be, but there is one more question that I would
like to ask—­may I?”

The Patriarch nodded his head, and laid his hand on
Madison’s sleeve in a quaint, almost affectionate
way.

“It is about your education. You came here
sixty years ago, and you have lived alone. You
could have had but few advantages, with your handicap,
previous to that, and yet you write and use such perfect
English.”

“The answer is very simple,” replied the
Patriarch on the slate. “Until within the
last year, I have read largely. Would you care
to look at my books? They are there in the nook
on the other side of the fireplace.”

Madison, promptly and full of interest, rose from
his chair, passed around the fireplace, and halted
before a row of shelves set in against the wall.

“I pass,” Madison admitted to himself
after a moment, during which his eyes roved over the
well chosen classics. “I’ve heard
of one or two of these before—­casually.
I’ve an idea that if the Patriarch’s got
all this inside his gray matter, it’s just as
well for the Flopper, for Pale Face Harry, for Helena
and yours truly that he’s deaf and dumb—­and
will be blind.”

Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming face,
and picked up the slate.

“I read a great deal myself,” he wrote.
“It is a pleasure to find real books
here. May I, during my stay in Needley, look upon
them in a little way as my own library?”

“You are very welcome indeed,” the Patriarch
answered.

“Thank you,” wrote Madison. “And
now, surely, I must go”—­he smiled
at the Patriarch.

“Come to-morrow,” invited the Patriarch.
“I would like to show you all around my little
place here.”

“Indeed, I will,” Madison scratched upon
the slate, “and do you know that somehow, since
I came here to-night, I feel a sense of relief, a
sort of guarantee that everything is going to be all
right with me in the future.”

The Patriarch smiled quietly, almost tolerantly.

“I know that,” he wrote. “Keep
your mind free of doubt, be optimistic and cheerful
as regards yourself, nourish the faith that has already
taken root and that I feel responds to mine; keep in
the open air and take plenty of exercise.”

Slowly, with an apparently abstracted air, Madison
read the slate, wiped it carefully, laid it down,
and then held out his hand.

Page 30

“Good-night!” he nodded warmly.

The Patriarch, still with the quiet smile upon his
lips, rose from his armchair, and, keeping his clasp
on Madison’s hand, led Madison to the door,
opened it, and with a gesture at once courtly and affectionate
bade his guest good-night.

Madison crossed the lawn at a thoughtful pace, turned
into the wagon track, and, in the shelter of the woods
now, whimsically felt his pulse; then, lighting a
cigar, tramped on with a buoyant stride.

“There’s only one answer, of course,”
he mused. “The Patriarch’s got a
brain kink on faith—­it’s the natural
outcome of living alone for sixty years. Outside
of that and his books, he’s as simple and innocent
and trusting as a babe. I suppose the thing’s
kind of grown on him—­Hiram said it had
taken forty years—­which isn’t sudden
unless you say it quick. Hanged if I don’t
like the old sport though, and if Helena isn’t
the best ever to him I’ll stop her chewing gum
allowance.” Madison looked up through the
arched, leafless branches overhead. “Beautiful
night, isn’t it?” said he pleasantly.

A little later he reached the main road and paused
a moment on the bridge, as though to sum up the thoughts
and imaginings that had occupied him on the way along.

“It’s a queer world,” said John
Garfield Madison profoundly to the turbid little stream
that flowed beneath his feet. “I wonder
why some of us are born with brains—­and
some are born just plain damned fools!”

He went on again, arrived at the Congress Hotel, and,
discovering through the window that the leading citizens
of Needley were still in session, negotiated the back
entrance. On the way upstairs he stumbled—­quite
inadvertently—­and stopped to listen.

“There he be now,” announced Hiram Higgins’
voice excitedly. “Goin’ up to his
room to meditate. Knew he’d come back feelin’
like that. I be goin’ out there to-morrow
to see the Patriarch myself.”

Madison smiled, mounted the remaining stairs, entered
his room, and lighted his lamp.

“Having got my hand in at writing,” he
remarked, “I guess I’d better keep it
up and write Helena—­Vail.”

He extracted a pad of writing paper and an envelope
from the tray of his trunk, his fountain pen from
his pocket, and, drawing his chair to the table and
laying down his cigar reluctantly at his elbow, began
to write. At the end of fifteen minutes, he tilted
back his chair, relighted the stub of his cigar, and
critically read over his epistle.

“Dear Kid,” it ran. “Do not
be anxious about me—­I am feeling better
already. Have had my first treatment, and am now
eating fried eggs and ham regularly three times a
day. A Sunday-school picnic taking to washboilers
full of thin coffee and the left-over cakes kindly
contributed by Deacon Jones’ household, is nothing
to the way the boobs will take to the Patriarch—­who
has kindly consented to go blind to make our thorny
paths as smooth as possible for us.

Page 31

“Do you get that, Helena—­he’s
going blind! In just a few days, my dear, you
will be with me, have patience. The meteorological
bureau is a little hazy yet on the exact date of the
total eclipse, but it’s due to happen any minute.
Now listen. Your name is Helena Vail. You’re
the Patriarch’s grand-niece, and you’re
coming to live alone with him and soothe his declining
years; but you can’t come yet because I’ve
got to find you first, and besides, until he’s
blind, he’ll stick to a nasty habit he’s
got of asking questions on his little slate. You
needn’t have any hesitation about coming on
the score of propriety, I assure you it is perfectly
proper—­he is running Methuselah pretty near
a dead heat. And, as far as the town is concerned,
apart from the fact that you are a grand-niece, orphaned,
you don’t have to know anything about yourself,
either—­that’s part of the Patriarch’s
dark, mysterious past, where the lights go out and
the fiddles get rickets.

He folded the pages, inserted them in the envelope,
sealed the envelope and addressed it to Miss Helena
Smith—­street and number not far from the
tenderloin district of New York.

Then Madison yawned pleasantly, tucked the letter
in his pocket—­and prepared for bed.

—­VI—­

OFFICIALLY ENDORSED

Ten days had passed, bringing with them many changes.
The snow was gone, and the warm, balmy airs of springtime
had brought the buds upon the trees almost to leaf.
It seemed indeed a new land, and one now full of charm
and delight—­the desolate, straggling hamlet,
once so barren, frozen and hopeless looking, was now
a quaint, alluring little village nestling picturesquely
in its hollow, framed in green fields and majestic
woods. Quiet, restful, peaceful it was—­like
a dream place, untroubled. Upon the farms about
men plowed their furrows, calling to each other and
to their horses; in the homes the doors and windows
were thrown hospitably wide to the sweet, fresh, vernal
airs, and the thrifty housewives were busy at their
cleaning.

And there had been other changes, too. The ten
days had found Madison more and more a constant visitor,
and finally a most intimate one, at the Patriarch’s
cottage—­while to the circle in the hotel
office his voice no longer rose in even feeble protest,
he was one of them. And, perhaps most vital change
of all, the Patriarch was nearly blind—­so
nearly blind that conversation now was limited to but
little more than a single word at a time upon the
slate.

It was morning, in the Patriarch’s sitting-room,
and Madison was seated in his usual place beside the
table facing the other. For upwards of an hour,
it had taken him that long, he had been engaged, having
decided that the time was ripe, in telling the Patriarch
that his grand-niece had been found and that now it
was only necessary to write and ask her to come to
Needley.

Page 32

The Patriarch’s fine old face was aglow with
pleasure as he finally understood. Letter writing
was beyond him now, a thing of the past, so upon the
slate he scrawled:

“You write.”

Madison shook his head; and again with gentle patience
explained that perhaps it would be better if the letter
came from some one holding an official position in
the village, rather than from one who, even in an
abstract way, would be unknown to her—­the
postmaster, for instance.

And the Patriarch, patting Madison’s sleeve
gratefully, agreed.

Out in the garden behind the cottage, where for the
first time in sixty seasons the work must be done
by other hands, Hiram Higgins, the volunteer for the
moment, was busy at his “spell.”

Madison stepped to the door and called him in.

“Mr. Higgins,” he said, “the Patriarch
has just told me that he has a grand-niece living
in New York, and he wants you to write to her and ask
her to come to him.”

“Be that so!” exclaimed Mr. Higgins, gazing
earnestly at the Patriarch. “Well, ’tain’t
no surprise to me—­always calc’lated
he must have folks somewheres. An’ I’m
right glad now he needs ’em he’s made up
his mind to have ’em come. Wants me to
write, does he?”

“He can’t write any more himself,”
said Madison. “He seems to think that you,
as the postmaster, as well as the town police official,
are the proper person to do it—­and I quite
agree with him.”

“So I be,” declared Mr. Higgins importantly.
“I’ll write it on the town paper, an’
comin’ from the postmaster there won’t
be no doubt in her mind that it’s any of them
bunco games or the lurin’ of young women away
such as I’ve read about, for I reckon perhaps
she ain’t never heerd of him before—­never
knew him to write a letter, an’ I calc’late
to see most everything that goes out.”

Mr. Higgins picked up the slate and wrote the word
“grand-niece?” upon it in enormous characters;
then, amplifying his interrogation by many gestures
of his hands, deft from long practice, he held the
slate up to the Patriarch.

The Patriarch nodded, and Hiram Higgins nodded back
encouragingly.

“Where be her address?” Mr. Higgins inquired
of Madison.

Madison stepped to the bookshelves out of view of
the Patriarch around the fireplace, but in full view
of Mr. Higgins, and, reaching down the Bible from
the topmost shelf, extracted from inside its cover
the aged, yellow slip of paper that he had deposited
there when he had entered the cottage that morning,
and on which was inscribed Helena’s name and
address in a stiff, old-fashioned, angular hand resembling
the Patriarch’s—­an effect that Madison
had stayed up half the night to produce.

“I guess this must be it,” he said.
“He said it was here—­we’ll make
sure though”—­and he handed it to the
Patriarch.

Long and painfully the Patriarch studied it, anxiously
deciphering the words that he had never seen before,
anxious to know all and whatever this might tell him
about his niece—­then again he nodded his
head and expressed his gratitude by, patting Madison’s
sleeve.

Page 33

Madison’s smile modestly disavowed any thanks,
as he passed the slip to Mr. Higgins.

“Reckon that be it,” Mr. Higgins agreed.
“An’ now, I guess I’ll go right
back to town an’ write it—­I allow
that the sooner we get her down here the better.
Folks’ll be glad to hear this—­the
women folks was figurin’ on takin’ spells
an’ helpin’ out in the house same as the
men in the garden—­’pears now there
won’t be no need of it.”

Madison accompanied Mr. Higgins outside and helped
him to harness up.

“Look here, Mr. Madison,” said Hiram Higgins,
as he made ready to go and climbed into the democrat,
“would you allow that the Patriarch’s goin’
blind was goin’ to interfere any with his power
of curin’ folks? It’ll be a powerful
blow to the town if it does.”

“Why, of course not!” said Madison decisively.
“Certainly not! Indeed, I wouldn’t
be surprised if it enhanced his power—­it’s
purely mental, you know. They say that the loss
of any one or more of the senses generally tends to
make the others only the more acute—­it’s
the—­er—­law of compensation.”

“Glad to hear you say so,” said Mr. Higgins,
with a sigh of relief, “’cause I got another
letter to write ’sides this one for the Patriarch.
It come last night, an’ I was figurin’
on speakin’ to you about it.” Mr.
Higgins dropped the reins on the dashboard, and dove
into first one pocket and then another. “Shucks!”
said he disgustedly. “Now if I ain’t
gone an’ left it to home after all. But
I dunno as it makes much difference. It was from
a fellow up your way by the name of Michael Coogan,
an’ was addressed to the postmaster. ’Pears
he read a piece in the papers about the Patriarch
which he sent along with the letter. Allows he’s
been ailin’ quite a spell, though he don’t
say what’s the matter with him, an’ wants
to know if what’s in that piece is all gospel
truth, ’cause if ‘tis he’s comin’
down. That’s why I’m right glad to
have heerd you say what you just said. Bein’
postmaster an’ writin’ ’fficially,
I got to be conscientious and pretty partic’lar.”

“Yes, of course—­naturally,”
said Madison. “And what are you going to
say to him?” “Why,” returned Mr.
Higgins, “there ain’t no trouble about
it now. Goin’ to tell him that if the Patriarch
can’t help him there ain’t nobody on earth
can—­thought of mentionin’ your name,
too.”

“By all means,” assented Madison cordially.
“I feel like a new man since I’ve come
here. I only wish more people knew about the Patriarch—­it
makes your heart ache to think of the suffering and
sickness that people endure so hopelessly when there
isn’t any need of it.”

“Yes, so it do,” said Mr. Higgins.
He picked up the reins. “So it do,”
he said heartily.

Madison watched the democrat as it started off behind
the ambling horse—­watched with a sort of
fascination at the inebriate, sideways stagger of
the wheels, a sort of wonder that the rear ones didn’t
shut up like a jack-knife under the body of the vehicle
and the democrat promptly sit down on its tail-board;
then, smiling, he walked back into the cottage.
The Patriarch was still sitting in the armchair beside
the table. Madison halted before the other.

Page 34

“Well,” said he confidentially to the
Patriarch, “that’s settled and I don’t
mind admitting that it’s a load off my mind.
I hate to think of what we’d have done without
Hiram Higgins—­in fact, it distresses me
to think of it. Let us think of something else.
Day after to-morrow Helena’ll be along.
Helena is the one and only—­but you’ll
find that out for yourself. I don’t mind
telling you though that she wears a number two shoe,
and you can guess the rest without any help from me.
Then a day or so later the Flopper and Pale Face Harry’ll
be along—­you’ll enjoy them—­things
aren’t going to be a bit slow from now on.
I expect the Flopper will bring some friends with
him, too, so’s to make a nice little house-party—­I
wrote him about it, and—­” Madison
stopped abruptly.

The Patriarch, evidently catching a movement of Madison’s
lips, was gesticulating violently toward his ears,
while he smiled half tolerantly, half protestingly.

Madison nodded quickly and smiled deprecatingly in
return.

“By Jove!” he said apologetically.
“I always keep forgetting that you can’t
hear. I was suggesting that perhaps you might
like to go for a walk—­Mr. Higgins says
it’s a fine day.” Madison picked up
the slate and in huge letters that sprawled from one
end of the slate to the other wrote the word:
“WALK?”

The Patriarch rose from his chair with a pleased expression,
and Madison helped him solicitously to the door.

They passed out into the sunshine and headed for the
beach—­the Patriarch, erect and strong,
guiding himself with his hand on Madison’s arm.

Reaching the beach, the Patriarch paused and turned
his face toward the ocean, while he drew in great
breaths of the invigorating air—­and Madison
involuntarily stepped a little aside to look at the
other critically, as one might seek a vantage ground
from which to view a picture in all its variant lights
and shades. Against the crested, breaking surf,
the fume-sprayed ledges of rock, the Patriarch stood
out a majestic, almost saintly figure—­tall,
stately, grand with the true grandeur of simplicity,
simple in dress, simple in attitude and mien, patience,
sweetness and trust illumining his face, his silver-crowned
head thrown back.

“I can shut my eyes,” said Madison softly,
“and see the Flopper being cured right now—­and
the Flopper couldn’t help it if he wanted to!”

—­VII—­

THE PATRIARCH’S GRAND-NIECE

It was Hiram Higgins who introduced Helena Vail to
Madison, two days later. Madison had led the
Patriarch outside the door of the cottage as the sound
of wheels announced the expected arrival, and was waiting
for her as Mr. Higgins drove up in the democrat.
Helena, marvelously garbed, in the extreme of fashion,
was demurely surveying her surroundings; while Mr.
Higgins was very evidently excited and not a little
flustered. A huge trunk and two smaller ones
occupied the rear of the democrat, with the dismantled
back seat lashed on top of them.

Page 35

Madison, leaving the Patriarch, hastened forward politely.

“Mr. Madison,” said Hiram Higgins importantly,
“this be the Patriarch’s grand-niece come
to stay with him.”

From under a picture hat, Helena’s eyes smiled
down at Madison.

“Oh, I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Madison,”
she said cordially. “Mr. Higgins has been
telling me about you, and how good you have been to
my—­my grand-uncle.”

“You are very kind to say so, Miss Vail,”
responded Madison modestly. “May I help
you down?”

She gave him a daintily gloved hand, exposed a daintily
stockinged ankle as she placed her foot a little hesitantly
on the wheel, and jumped lightly to the ground.

“That,” she said quickly and a little
anxiously for Mr. Higgins’ ears, indicating
the Patriarch, “that is my grand-uncle there,
I am sure.”

“Yes,” said Madison, leading her toward
the Patriarch. “And he has been looking
forward very anxiously all day to your arrival—­it
seemed as though the afternoon would never come for
him.”

“Gee!” said Helena under her breath.
“I had the rubes in the village on the run—­you
ought to have seen them stare as the chariot drove
along.”

“I don’t wonder,” said Madison softly.
“The sun’s rather strong down here, Helena,
and if you’re not careful you’ll scorch
your neck with those burning-glasses you’ve
got in your ears.”

“Don’t I look nice?” demanded Helena,
with a pout.

“You bet you do!” said Madison earnestly.
“You’ve got the swellest thing on Broadway
beaten from Forty-Second Street to the Battery.
Now, here you are”—­they had halted
before the Patriarch.

The venerable face was turned toward them, as though
by instinct the Patriarch knew that they were there—­and
his hands were held out in greeting.

Helena clasped them firmly, and submitted sweetly
as the Patriarch drew her into his arms.

The Patriarch released her after an instant, and his
hands, in lieu of eyes, reaching out to search her
face, came bewilderingly in contact with the picture
hat.

Helena, a little uncertainly, looked at Madison.

“Is he all blind?” she whispered.

“Quite blind,” said Madison sadly.

Helena’s face clouded a little, and into the
brown eyes crept a strange, sudden, sympathetic look.

“One error to you, Miss Vail,” said Madison
pleasantly. “Eliminate the ‘Doc.’
Don’t shed tears, you’re down here to be
sweet to him, aren’t you—­well, get
into the game.”

Helena turned from Madison, and, impulsively taking
the Patriarch’s groping hands, guided them to
her cheeks and held them there.

“Lucky dog!” observed Madison; then, raising
his voice: “I am sure you would like to
be alone together, Miss Vail—­perhaps you
will take him into the cottage. If you will excuse
me, I’ll help Mr. Higgins with the trunks.”

Page 36

Madison turned and walked over to where Mr. Higgins,
beside the democrat with a handful of chin whiskers,
was observing the scene.

“Fine girl!” declared Mr. Higgins, as
Helena, with the Patriarch’s arm in hers, disappeared
inside the cottage. “’Pears she must have
money, an’ I’m right glad ‘count
of the Patriarch—­said her father an’
mother was dead an’ she was alone in the world—­them
jewels she wore must have cost a pile. Reckon
she’s been used to livin’ kinder different
from the way folks down here do—­hope ‘tain’t
goin’ to be so hard on her she won’t want
to stay.”

“I was thinking about that myself,” said
Madison gravely, knotting his brows as he nodded his
head. “There’s no doubt it will be
a big change for her, but I imagine she had some sort
of an idea what to expect—­it is certainly
greatly to her credit that she would give up her own
interests unselfishly and come here to devote her life
to the care of a relative whom she had never seen
before. I’ve an idea that the girl who
would do that is the kind of a girl who’s got
grit enough to see it through.”

“So she be,” said Mr. Higgins heartily.
“Ain’t every one ’ud do it—­not
by a heap!”

“I’ll give you a hand with the trunks,”
said Madison thoughtfully.

They carried the large trunk between them into the
cottage and, as Helena called to them, down the little
hallway past what Madison knew to be the Patriarch’s
bedroom, and stopped before the next door, which was
open. Madison remembered the room, when nearly
two weeks ago now the Patriarch had shown him through
the cottage, as a sort of store-room full of odds
and ends. Mr. Higgins, too, evidently had known
it only in that guise, for he whistled softly and
reached for his whiskers.

“Well now, if that ain’t right smart of
the Patriarch!” he exclaimed. “Real
set he must have been on makin’ you feel to home,
Miss Vail—­an’ never said a word to
no one, neither.”

“Yes,” said Helena, “isn’t
it pretty? And did he really fix this up for
me all by himself?”—­she was looking
at Madison, as she stood in the center of the room
beside the Patriarch.

“Must have,” said Madison, surveying the
room.

It wasn’t luxurious, the little chamber, nor
was there over much of furniture, nor was that even
of a high order—­there was a bed with a
red-checkered crazy-quilt; a washstand with severe,
heavy white crockery; a rocking chair, homemade, of
hickory; a rag mat, round, many-colored; and white
muslin curtains on the windows. It wasn’t
luxurious, the little chamber—­it was fresh
and sweet and clean.

Upon the Patriarch’s face was a sort of pleased
expectancy, and Helena promptly took his arm and pressed
it affectionately.

“Isn’t it perfectly dear of him!”
she said softly. “To think of him going
to all this trouble for me when he could scarcely see!”

“Well, ’tain’t no more’n you
deserve,” said Mr. Higgins gallantly, as he
slewed the trunk around against the wall. “I’ll
lug them other trunks in myself, ain’t but small
ones, they ain’t”—­and he hurried
from the room, as though fearful that Madison might
secure a share in the honors.

Page 37

“I guess you’ve made a hit with Mr. Higgins,
Helena,” observed Madison, with a grin.

“Yes; not bad,” said Madison complacently.
“Bring your uncle into the front room, Helena;
and then you can get Hiram to show you the well and
the old oaken bucket and where the pantries and cupboards
are, he knows more about them than I do—­it’s
pretty near time for you to be thinking about getting
supper.”

“Are you going to stay for it?” inquired
Helena pertly.

“For the first attempt!” ejaculated Madison,
with a wry face. “Good Heavens, no!
I’m just convalescing from a serious illness.”

In the front room Madison settled himself to a study
of the Patriarch’s beaming, happy face, while
Helena under Mr. Higgins’ attentive guidance
explored the cottage.

“D’ye know, old chap,” he said,
and leaned across the table to touch the Patriarch’s
hand, “I feel like a blooming philanthropist.
An outsider might think I was playing you pretty low
and taking advantage of you, and even Helena’s
got a budding hunch that way it seems—­but
just think of the mess you’d have been in if
it wasn’t for me, just think of the good you’re
going to do, and just look at yourself and see how
pleased and happy you look.”

The Patriarch smiled responsively to the touch upon
his hand.

“Of course you are,” said Madison affably.

Presently there came the sound of an axe busily at
work, and a moment later Helena came laughingly into
the room.

“He’s filling up the wood-box,”
she explained, and darting across to Madison put her
arms around his neck. “Aren’t you
going to tell me you’re glad to see me?”
she whispered coyly. “Oh, I’ve been
longing so for you! Kiss me”—­she
held out tempting little red lips, invitingly pursed
up.

“Nix on that!” said Madison, smiling but
firm, as he disengaged her arms. “Soft
pedal, Helena, my dear.”

“But he can’t see or hear,” pouted
Helena.

“I should hope not!” said Madison, with
a gasp. “But you never know who else might,
or when they might—­we begin right, and run
no risks—­see? People have a charming
habit of dropping around informally here—­everybody’s
at home.”

“Don’t you love me any more?” inquired
Helena, unconvinced, and still pouting.

“Of course, I do!” asserted Madison, laughing
at her. “Don’t be a goose, Helena.
You remember what I told you all in the Roost, don’t
you? Well, I haven’t been living in a Maine
village ten days or two weeks for nothing, and what
I said then goes now more than ever. Now, don’t
get sore, kid—­there’s a big stake
up, and if we’re going to play the game we’ve
got to play it to the limit. We live perfectly,
ultra-proper, decent lives, mentally, morally, physically,
till we beat it out of here for keeps.”

“Ain’t we going to have a nice time!”
murmured Helena sarcastically.

Page 38

“Oh, cheer up!” said Madison. “It
may be quiet for a day or two—­but not much
longer than that. Now tell me about the Flopper
and Pale Face before Higgins gets back—­have
they got things straight? And pat your uncle’s
hand while you talk, Helena—­get the habit.”

“I don’t have to get the habit,”
said Helena a little crossly, perching herself on
the arm of the Patriarch’s chair and taking his
hand. “I think he’s a perfect dear,
and for us to sit here and take advantage of him when
he trusts us is—­”

“Now cut that out,” said Madison cheerfully.
“Think of those gondolas in Venice when we get
through with this—­that’ll make you
feel better. Go on about the Flopper and Pale
Face—­can the Flopper speak any English
yet?”

Helena laughed in spite of herself.

“I’ve had a dream of a time with him,”
she said. “He’s broken his neck trying,
at any rate; and he’s not so bad as he was—­quite.”

“Good!” said Madison. “And?”

“I read them your last letter saying they were
to come together and work the train on the way down,”
she continued. “The Flopper got the postmaster’s
letter, too.”

“How did it size up as a testimonial?”
inquired Madison.

Helena’s dark eyes flashed with amusement.

“Lovely!”

“Too thick—­fishy?” asked Madison.

“Oh, no,” said Helena, “not if you
have faith—­just strong. It’s
all right, though; I told him he could use it—­it’s
a drawing card in itself, for some of them would be
curious enough to get off and see the finish.
Everything is all fixed—­they’ll be
here to-morrow.”

“Good girl!” said Madison approvingly.
“We’ll pull it off out there on the lawn
where all the multitude can see—­you’ll
have to lead his nibs out and guide him to the Flopper
while the hush falls and you look kind of scared—­you
know the lay. There’s no one can touch you
when it comes to playing up to the house. And
now, there’s just one thing more—­you’ll
need some one around here to help you and keep an eye
on the offerings when they begin to come in.
Well, that’s the Flopper’s role in the
second act—­see? Overwhelmed with gratitude
at his cure, he attaches himself to the Patriarch
with dog-like fidelity—­beautiful thought!—­get
the idea? And—­”

“Hush!” cautioned Helena. “Here’s
Mr. Higgins coming.”

“All right,” said Madison, rising and
moving to the door. “I’m going now,
then—­guess you understand. See you
in the morning for the final touches. Tell Mr.
Higgins I’m waiting outside for him to drive
me home.” He raised his voice. “Good
afternoon, Miss Vail,” he said, and stepped
out onto the lawn.

—­VIII—­

IN WHICH THE BAIT IS NIBBLED

There was a group around the Flopper on the Portland
platform beside the Bar Harbor express; some wore
pitying expressions, others smiled a little tolerantly—­Pale
Face Harry, from the circle, sneered openly.

Page 39

“Nutty!” he coughed, and touched his forehead.
“Nothing doing in the upper story—­some
one ought to look after him.”

The Flopper, a crippled thing on the ground, fixed
Pale Face Harry with a pointed forefinger.

“Youse don’t look like you had many weeps
to spare for anybody but yerself—­yer fallin’
to pieces,” said the Flopper. “I didn’t
ask you nor any of youse to butt in—­I was
talkin’ to dis lady here”—­he
motioned toward a young woman in a wheeled, invalid
chair, who, between a trained nurse on one side and
a gentleman on the other, was regarding him with a
startled expression in her eyes.

She turned now and spoke to the gentleman beside her.

“Robert,” she said, in a low, anxious
tone, “do you think that—­that there
can be anything in it?”

“Have you lost your head, Naida?” the
man laughed. “The age of miracles has passed.”

“But he is so sure,” she whispered.

“Poppycock!” said her companion contemptuously.

The Flopper, in good, if unfashionable and ready-made
clothes, fresh linen, and a clean shave, turned a
bright, intelligent face on the man at this remark.

“I guess youse are de kind,” he said,
with a grim smile, “dat ain’t had to kill
yerself worryin’ much about any kind of trouble,
an’ it ain’t nothin’ to you to cut
de ground of hope out from another guy’s feet
an’ let him slide. Mabbe you think I’m
nutty too, because I know I’m goin’ to
be cured—­but it don’t hurt you none
to have me think so, does it? Mabbe someday you
might like to hope a little yerself, an’ if—­”

“’Board! All aboard!”—­the
conductor’s voice boomed down the platform.

The young woman leaned forward in her chair toward
the Flopper.

“I know what it is to hope,” she said
softly. “Will you come back into our car
after awhile? I’d like to have you tell
me more about this. Please do.”

The crowd broke up, hurrying for the train; and the
Flopper, dragging a valise along beside him, jerked
himself toward the steps.

“Swipe me, if I ain’t got a bite already!”
said the Flopper to himself. “An’
outer a private car, too—­wouldn’t
dat bump you! An’ say, wait till you see
de Doc t’row up his dukes when he listens to
me handin’ out me sterilized English!”

The brakeman and a kindly-hearted fellow passenger
helped the Flopper into the train—­and thereafter
for an hour or more, in a first class coach, the Flopper
held undisputed sway. The passengers, flocking
from the other cars, filled the aisle and seriously
interfered with the lordly movements of the train
crew, challenging the conductor’s authority
with passive indifference until that functionary, exasperated
beyond endurance, threatened to curtail the ride the
Flopper had paid for and put him off at the next station—­whereat
the passive attitude of the passengers vanished.

Page 40

The American public is always interested in a novelty,
and on occasions is not to be gainsaid—­the
American public, as represented by the patrons of
the Bar Harbor express, was interested at the moment
in the Flopper, and they passed the conductor from
hand to hand—­it was the only way he could
have got through the car—­and deposited
him outside in the vestibule to tell his troubles to
the buffer-plate.

The Flopper was in deadly, serious earnest; there
was no doubt, no possible room for doubt on that score—­one
had but to look at the flush upon his cheeks and note
the ring of conviction in his voice. Even Pale
Face Harry’s gibes and sneers melted before the
unshakable assurance, and he became, with reservations,
noticeably impressed.

A metropolitan newspaper man was struck with the idea
of a humorous series of articles to pay for his vacation,
entitled, “Characters I Have Met In Maine”—­and
forthwith, perched on the back of the seat behind the
Flopper, proceeded to sketch out the first one, with
the mental determination to get off at Needley for
the local color necessary to its climax.

A soap drummer nudged a fellow drummer whose line
was lingerie.

“Ever do Needley?” he grinned.

The lingerie exponent had a sense of humor—­he
grinned back.

“My house is everlastingly rubbing it into me
to open up new territory,” said the soap salesman.

“Me too,” responded the white-goods man.

“Needley,” said he of the soap persuasion,
“would be virgin soil for any drummer.”

“I’d like to see the finish,” said
the lingerie man—­still grinning.

“Well?” inquired the soap man—­still
grinning. “What do you say?”

“You bet!” said the man with eight trunks
full of daintiness in the baggage car ahead.
“It’s Needley for ours—­you’re
on!”

The Flopper was an artist—­and he was in
his glory. Where his position was indubitably
weak, he side-stepped with the frank admission that
he knew no more than they. He knew only one thing,
and that was the only thing he cared about, the rest
made no odds to him, he was going down to Needley
to be cured—­and he let them see Mr. Higgins’
letter.

A porter from the rear car squirmed and wriggled his
way down to the seat occupied by the Flopper.

“Mistah Tho’nton, sah,” he announced
importantly, “would like to see you in his private
car, if you could done make it convenient, sah.”

“Sure!” said the Flopper.

The passengers crowded up, standing on the seats and
arm-rests, to make room for the Flopper to crawl down
the aisle, while the porter preceded him to open the
doors.

Through the car in the rear of the one he had occupied,
the regular parlor car, the Flopper, a piteous spectacle,
made his way—­chairs turned, the occupants
craned their necks after the deformed and broken creature,
while smothered exclamations and little cries of sympathy
from the women followed him along. The Flopper’s
eyes never lifted from the strip of carpet before
him, but his lips moved.

Page 41

“Gee!” he muttered. “Dis has
de gape-wagon skun a mile. Wish I could pass
de hat—­I’d make de killin’ of
me young life. Pipe de hydrogen hair on de gran’mother
wid de sparkler on her thumb an’ weeps in her
eyes, an’ look at de guy wid de yellow gloves
rolled back on his wrists to heighten de intelligint
look on his face, dat she’s kiddin’—­I
could play dem to a fare-thee-well if I only had de
chanst. Oh, gee!”—­the Flopper
sighed—­“an’ I got to let it
go!”

With regret still poignantly affecting him, the Flopper
passed on into the private car, and the porter ushered
him into a sort of combination observation and sitting-room
compartment. The Flopper’s eyes lifted and
made a quick, comprehensive tour of his surroundings.
The young woman who had spoken to him on the platform
was reclining on a couch; the nurse sat on the foot
of the couch; and the man was tilted back in an armchair
against the window.

The young woman raised herself to a sitting posture
and held out her hand.

“I am Mrs. Thornton,” she said, with a
smile. “This is my husband, and this is
Miss Harvey, my nurse. It was very good of you
to come, Mr.—?” she paused invitingly.

“Coogan,” supplied the Flopper. “Michael
Coogan.”

“Let me offer you a chair, Mr. Coogan,”
said Thornton, a little ironically, pushing one toward
the Flopper. “Or would you be more comfortable
on the floor?”

The Flopper’s eyelids fell—­covering
a quick, ugly glint.

“T’anks!” he said—­and
swung himself, by his arms, into the chair.

“I want you to tell me all about this strange
man in Needley, and how you came to hear of him and
believe in him,” said Mrs. Thornton. “I
was only able to get just the barest outline of it
out there on the platform with the crowd around.”

“Dat’s easy,” said the Flopper earnestly.
“Sure, I’ll tell you. I saw a piece
about dis Patriarch in one of de Noo Yoik papers, so
I writes to de postmaster of de town to find out if
he was on de level—­see?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Thornton. “And
what did the postmaster say?”

The Flopper took Hiram Higgins’ letter from
his pocket and handed it to Mrs. Thornton.

“Youse can read it fer yerself, mum,”
he said, with an air of one delivering a final and
irrefutable argument.

Mrs. Thornton read the letter carefully, almost anxiously.

“If only a part of this is true,” she
said wistfully, passing it to her husband, “it
is perfectly wonderful.”

Miss Harvey read it with her back to the others—­then
she glanced at Mrs. Thornton—­and checked
herself as she was about to speak. She folded
the letter slowly and returned it to the Flopper without
comment.

Page 42

Robert Thornton, master of millions, hard-headed and
practical for all his youth, leaned forward in his
chair toward the Flopper.

“Look here,” he said bluntly, “you
don’t mean to say that you believe this seriously,
do you?”

Thornton did not look at her—­he was still
gazing at the Flopper, his brows knitted.

“How long have you been like this?” he
demanded sharply.

“All me life,” said the Flopper.
“I was born dat way.”

“And you expect to go down here and by some
means, which I must confess is quite beyond my ability
to grasp, be cured in a miraculous manner!”—­Thornton
smiled tolerantly.

“Sure, I do!” asserted the Flopper doggedly.
“If he’s done it fer de crowd dere, why
can’t he do it fer me? Didn’t de postmaster
say all yer gotter have is faith? Well, I got
de faith—­an’ I got it hard enough
to stake all I got on it. Dis time to-morrow—­say,
dis time to-morrow I wouldn’t change places
wid any man in de United States.”

Thornton’s tolerant smile deepened.

“I guess you’re sincere enough,”
he said; “and I’m not trying to cut the
ground of hope out from under your feet, as you put
it out on the platform—­but it seems to
me that it is only the kindly thing to do to warn
you that the more faith you put in a thing like this
the worse you are making it for yourself—­you
are laying up a bitter disappointment in store that
can only make your present misfortune the more unbearable.”

The Flopper shook his head.

“If he’s done it fer others, he can do
it fer me,” he repeated, with unshaken conviction.
“An’ dat goes—­I can’t
lose.”

Thornton tilted his chair back again, and stared at
the Flopper with pitying incredulity.

There was silence for a moment; then Mrs. Thornton
spoke.

“Robert,” she said slowly, “I want
to stop at Needley.”

The front legs of Thornton’s chair came down
on the heavy carpet with a dull thud, and he whirled
around in his seat to stare at his wife.

“No; not faith,” she answered pathetically.
“I hardly dare to hope. I have hoped
so much in the last year, and—­”

“But this is sheer nonsense!” Thornton
broke in with irritable impatience. “I
can understand this man here, in a way—­he
has the superstition, if you like to call it that,
due to lack of education, if he’ll pardon my
saying so in his presence; but you, Naida, surely you
can’t take any stock in it!”

She smiled at him a little wanly.

Page 43

“I have told you that I didn’t even dare
to hope,” she said. “But I want to
see—­I want to see. I have tried sanatoriums
and consulted specialists until it has all become
a nightmare to me and I am no better—­I
sometimes think I never shall be any better.”

“But,” exploded Thornton, rising from
his chair, “that’s nothing to do with
this—­this is rank foolishness! Nurse,
you—­”

“It is better to humor her than to excite her,”
she said in a low voice.

Mrs. Thornton had dropped back on the couch and her
face was turned away from the others, but she stretched
out her hand to her husband.

“I am not asking very much, Robert, dear—­am
I?” she said. “Not very much.
Won’t you do this for me?”

Thornton bit his lips and scowled at the Flopper.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he muttered—­and
moving to the side of the car pushed a bell-button
viciously. “Sam,” he snapped, as his
colored man appeared, “go and tell the conductor
that I want my car put off on the siding at Needley.”

“Yes, sah,” said Sam.

Thornton sat down again heavily.

“Mabbe,” announced the Flopper tactfully,
“mabbe I’d better be gettin’ back
to me valise—­we’re most dere, ain’t
we?”

Mrs. Thornton turned toward him.

“No; please don’t go, Mr. Coogan—­it’s
too hard for you to get through the train. Sam
will get your things as soon as he comes back.
Do stay right where you are until we get to Needley.”

“No; don’t think of going, Mr. Coogan,”
said Thornton savagely.

The Flopper looked at Mrs. Thornton gratefully, and
at Mr. Thornton thoughtfully.

“T’anks!” said the Flopper pleasantly—­and
wriggled himself into a more comfortable position
in his chair.

Half an hour later, the train, that stopped only on
signal to discharge eastbound passengers from Portland,
drew up at Needley—­and Hiram Higgins, on
the platform, stared at a scene never before witnessed
in the history of the town.

It was not one passenger, or two, or three, that alighted—­they
streamed in a bewildering fashion from every vestibule
of every car. It is true that the majority got
back into the train later, but that did not lessen
the effect any on Mr. Higgins. Mr. Higgins’
jaw dropped, and he grabbed at his chin whiskers for
support.

“Merciful daylights!” he breathed heavily.
“Now what in the land’s sakes be it all
about?” His eyes, following the hurrying passengers,
fixed on the twisted shape of the Flopper, being helped
to the platform from the private car.

“Three cheers for Coogan!” yelled some
excitable passenger.

The cheers were given with a will.

“Good luck to you, Coogan!” shouted another—­and
the crowd took it up in chorus: “Good luck
to you, Coogan!”

Page 44

“Coogan!”—­Mr. Higgins’
face paled, and he took a firmer grip on his whiskers.
“Now if you ain’t gone an’ put your
fool foot in it, Hiram Higgins,” he said miserably.
“If that there’s the fellow that you writ
to, you’ve just laid out to make a plumb fool
of the Patriarch, ’cause I reckon the Almighty
knew His own mind when He made a critter like that,
an’ didn’t calc’late to have His
work upsot much this side of the grave—­not
even by the Patriarch.”

—­IX—­

THE PILGRIMAGE

Faith is an inheritance common to the human race;
and the human race in its daily life, in its daily
dealings, man to man, could not go on without it—­but
faith is a matter of degree. Faith, in the abstract,
the element of it, is inborn in every soul; and while
dormant, until put to a crucial test along any given
line, is boundless and unlimited—­a sort
of tacitly accepted, existing state, unquestioned.
Faith in many is a sturdy, virile thing—­to
a certain point. It is the fire that proves.

Needley had faith in the Patriarch—­a faith
that never before had been questioned. But Needley
had more than that—­Needley held the Patriarch
in affection, as a cherished thing, almost sacredly,
almost as an idol. Faith the simple people of
Needley had always had—­to a certain point—­but
it faltered before this grotesque, inhuman, twisted
shape that squatted in the road before the Congress
Hotel like a hideous caricature of an abnormal toad.
Their faith failed to bridge the span that gave the
Patriarch power over such as this, and they saw their
idol shattered in their own eyes, and held up to mockery
before the eyes of these strangers who had so suddenly
and tempestuously swarmed upon them.

Hiram Higgins, seeking out Doc Madison inside the
hotel, was in a state bordering on distraction.

“I druve him over from the station ‘cause
he couldn’t walk, him an’ a man, an’
two women, an’ a wheel-chair,” Mr. Higgins
explained. “But what’s to be done
now? He wants me to drive him out to the Patriarch’s.
I got faith in the Patriarch, but I never said he could
work miracles—­there ain’t no one
on earth could straighten that critter out. Don’t
stand to reason that the Patriarch’s to be made
a fool of.”

“Certainly not,” agreed Madison emphatically.
“It’s most unfortunate. I suppose
all of us here in Needley”—­he looked
around at the assembled group of leading citizens—­“feel
the same way, too?”

Madison laid his hand suddenly, impressively, upon
Mr. Higgins’ shoulder and looked meaningly into
Mr. Higgins’ eyes—­and into the eyes
of the selectmen, the overseers of the poor, the general-store
proprietor, and the school committee.

“Don’t drive him over, then,” he
said significantly. “Don’t any of
the rest of you do it either—­and tell everybody
else not to. Make him crawl. If he’s
determined to go, let him get there by himself if he
can, make him crawl—­he’ll never be
able to do it.”

Page 45

“That’s so,” said Mr. Higgins, brightening,
while the others nodded; then, dubiously: “But
s’pose he does get there—­how
be we goin’ to stop him?”

“If he can get there by himself you can’t
stop him,” said Madison seriously. “You
can’t do anything like that. To use force
would be carrying things too far, and would only place
the Patriarch in a worse light. If this fellow—­what’s
his name?—­Coogan?—­can crawl there,
let him—­that’s his own business.
None of us are encouraging him, the Patriarch
didn’t ask him to come, and no one has a right
to expect miracles—­so it can’t hurt
the Patriarch seriously under those conditions.
Besides, if this Coogan has got faith enough to crawl
that mile, who knows what might happen—­make
him crawl.”

Mr. Higgins, with a grim nod, headed a determined
exodus from the hotel office—­and Madison
strolled out onto the veranda.

Needley was in a furor. The news spread like
an oil-fed conflagration. The farmers left their
work in the fields and hurried into the village; from
the houses and cottages came the women and children
to cluster around the Congress Hotel; from the station,
scarcely of less interest to the inhabitants than
the Flopper himself, straggled in those curious enough
to have left the train, nearly a dozen of them—­and
amongst them Pale Face Harry coughed, as he trudged
laboriously along.

Larger and larger grew the circle around the Flopper,
filling and blocking the road, overflowing into front
yards, and massing on the little lawn of the hotel
clear up to the veranda—­until fields and
houses were deserted, and to the last inhabitant Needley
was there.

Upon the ground squatted the Flopper, his eyes sweeping
the ring of faces that was like a wall around him—­the
grinning faces of his fellow passengers from the train;
the stony, concerned and rather sullen faces of the
men of Needley; the anxious, excited faces of the women;
the bewildered, curious and somewhat frightened faces
of the children, who pushed and shoved their elders
for better vantage ground.

The Flopper licked his lips, and renewed the appeal
he had been making for nearly five minutes.

“Ain’t no one goin’ to drive me
out to de Patriarch’s?”

“Horses are all busy in the fields,” said
a voice, uncompromisingly.

“Yes,” said the Flopper, with bitter irony,
“drivin’ each other around, while youse
are here starin’ at me an’ won’t
help.”

His eyes caught Doc Madison’s from the veranda
and held an instant to read a message and interpret
the almost imperceptible, but significant, movement
of Madison’s head.

“Gee!” said the Flopper to himself, as
his eyes swept the faces around him again. “Dis
is a nice game de Doc’s planted on me—­he
wants me to do de wiggle out dere fer de rubes!
Ain’t dey a peachy lot—­look at de
saucer eyes on de kids!”

Mrs. Thornton, in her wheel-chair on the inner edge
of the circle, turned to her husband.

Page 46

“It’s very strange that no one seems willing
to drive him,” she said.

“Oh, not very,” responded Thornton, with
a short laugh. “I don’t blame them—­they
don’t want this healer of theirs made a monkey
of.”

“If no one will drive him, he shall have my
wheel-chair,” announced Mrs. Thornton impulsively.
“I think it is a perfect shame—­the
poor man!”

“Nonsense!” said Thornton gruffly.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”

“Yes, Robert, I will,” declared Mrs. Thornton
with determination. She leaned forward and called
to the Flopper. “Mr. Coogan,” she
said anxiously, “if you can’t find any
other way of getting out there, I want you to take
this chair of mine—­you’ll be able
to manage with it, I am sure.”

The Flopper looked at her with gratitude—­but
shook his head—­mindful of Doc Madison.

“T’anks, mum,” said the Flopper
again, “but I couldn’t. You needs
it, an’ I can get along widout it. Dey’re
stallin’ on me, but I can get dere by myself
if any one’ll show me de way.”

“I’ll show you, mister,” piped a
shrill voice—­and young Holmes on his crutch
hopped into the circle. “I’ll show
you, mister—­an’ ’tain’t
fur, neither.”

“Swipe me!” muttered the Flopper, as he
surveyed the lad. “Dis is de limit fer
fair!” Perturbed and uncertain what to do, he
tried to catch Doc Madison’s eye again, but
a movement in the crowd had hidden Madison.

Some one in the crowd, the lingerie drummer, getting
the grim humor of the situation, laughed—­and
the laugh came like a challenge, taunting the quick-tempered,
turbulent soul of the Flopper.

“God bless you, son,” said the Flopper,
while he flung an inward curse at the man who had
laughed. “Son, God bless you fer yer good
heart—­go ahead—­I’ll stick
to you.”

The crowd opened, making a lane through which the
boy stumped on his crutch, his face flushed and eager,
and through which the Flopper followed, slowly, rocking
from side to side as he helped himself along with
the palm of his left hand flat in the dust of the road,
trailing his wobbling leg behind him.

The crowd closed in behind and moved forward.

Mrs. Thornton’s face was fever-flushed, her
eyes bright; in her weak state she was on the verge
of nervous hysteria.

“I want to go, Robert,” she cried.
“I must go.”

“But, my dear,” protested Thornton harshly,
“this is simply the height of absurdity.
For Heaven’s sake be sensible, Naida. Just
imagine what people would say if they saw us here
with this outfit of idiots—­they’d
think we’d gone mad.”

“I don’t care what they’d think,”
she returned feverishly, her frail fingers plucking
nervously at the arms of her chair. “I must
go—­I must—­I must.”

Page 47

Thornton glanced at the nurse, then stared at his
wife—­Miss Harvey’s meaning look was
hardly necessary to drive home to him the fact that
Mrs. Thornton was in no condition to be denied anything.

Red-faced, Thornton strode to the back of the chair
and began to push it along.

“Of all the damned foolishness that ever I heard
of,” he gritted savagely, “this is the
worst!” His face went redder still with mortification.
“If this ever leaks out I’ll never hear
the last of it. Look at us—­bringing
up the rear of a gibbering mob of yokels! We’re
fit for a padded cell!”

In the crowd, Madison rubbed shoulders for a moment
with Pale Face Harry.

“I guess I’ll get acquainted,” said
Madison. “Circulate, Harry, and cough your
head off—­don’t hide your light under
a bushel—­circulate.” And Madison
fell back to scrape acquaintance with the man of millions.

Close-packed upon the road, the procession spread
out for a hundred yards behind the Flopper—­bare-footed
children; women in multi-colored gingham and calico;
men in the uncouth dress of the fields, the uncouthness
accentuated by the sprinkling of more pretentious clothing
worn by those who had come from the train. And
slowly, very slowly, this conglomerate human cosmorama
moved on, undulating queerly with the variant movements
of its component parts, snail-like, for the Flopper’s
pace was slow—­as strange a spectacle, perhaps,
as the human eye had ever witnessed, something of
grimness, something of humor, something of awe, something
of fear exuding from it—­it seemed to contain
within itself the range, and to express, the gamut
of all human emotion.

On the procession went—­so slowly as to
be almost sinister in its movement. And a strange
sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover over
it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. Three
hundred voices, men’s, women’s and children’s,
rose and fell, rose and fell—­at first in
a medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, earnest
dispute and children’s prattle—­a
strange composite sound indeed! But as the minutes
passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the Flopper
paused to rest, and moved on and stopped and moved
on again, gradually this changed, very gradually,
not abruptly, but as though the scoffings and the
laughter were dying away almost imperceptibly in the
distance. For as the Flopper stopped to rest,
those near him gazed upon his face, distorted, full
of muscular distress, sweat pouring from his forehead,
pain and suffering written in every lineament—­and
drew back whispering into the crowd, giving place
to others until all had seen. And so the strange
sound from this strange congregation grew lower, until
it was a sort of breathless, long-sustained and wavering
note, a prescience, a premonition of something to
come, a ghastly mockery or a tragedy to befall, until
it was an awe-struck murmuring thing.

Page 48

Some spoke to him now and in pity offered to get him
a horse and wagon, offered even to carry him—­but
the Flopper shook his head.

“‘Tain’t goin’ to be but a
few minutes now,” he panted in an exalted voice,
“before I’m cured—­I got de faith
to know dat—­I got de faith.”

And the crippled lad upon the crutch beside him urged
him on. The boy’s face was strained and
eager, full of mingled emotions—­pride in
the leading part he played, wonder and expectancy.

“Come on, mister, come on!” he kept saying,
impatiently accommodating his own restricted pace
to the Flopper’s still slower one.

Through the wagon track, through the woods beneath
the trees, the dead, slow, shuffling tread went on—­and
now even the murmuring sound was hushed. Men
and women stared into each other’s faces—­children
sought their elders’ hands. What did it
mean? Faith—­yes, they had had faith—­but
never faith like this. They looked at the awful
deformity over one another’s heads, crawling
inch by inch along before them—­watched
the stubborn, bitter struggle of pain and suffering
of the wretched man who led them, spurred on by a
faith cast in a heroic mold such as none there had
ever dreamed of before—­and they spoke no
more. There was only the sound of movement now—­and
that curiously subdued. Men seemed to choose
their footing, seeking to tread noiselessly, as though
in some solemn presence that awed them and held them
in an intangible, heart-quickening suspense.

Onward they went—­following the lurching,
wriggling, reeling, broken thing before them—­following
the Flopper, his right hand and arm curved piteously
inward to his chin, his neck thrown sideways, his sagging
leg seeming to hold only to his body by spasmodic
jerks to catch up with the body itself, like the steel
when detached from the magnet that bounds forward
to re-attach itself again, his eyes starting from his
head, his face bloodless with exertion and twisted
as fearfully as were his limbs, but upon his lips
a smile of resolution, of indomitable assurance.

Onward they went—­a huddled mass of humanity,
literate and illiterate, of all ages, of all conditions,
and none laughed, none grinned, none smiled, none
spoke—­all that was past. They stopped,
they moved again—­as the Flopper stopped
and moved. Occasionally a child cried out—­occasionally
there came a discordant, racking cough—­that
was all.

Tenser grew the very atmosphere they breathed—­heavier
upon them fell the sense of something almost supernatural,
beyond the human and the finite. Skeptic and
faint believer, sinner, Christian and scoffer, they
were all alike now in the presence of a faith whose
evidence was before them in harrowing vividness, in
the torment and agony of a fellow creature who sought
again through faith a restoration to the image of
his kind. There was no creed, no school of ethical
belief, no conflicting orthodoxy to quibble over,
no ground on which atheist and theologian even might
stand apart—­there was only faith—­a
faith whose trappings none might take issue with,
for it was naked faith and the trappings were stripped
from it—­it was faith in its very essence,
boundless, utter, simple, limitless, staggering, appalling
them.

Page 49

Its consummation? That was another thing—­a
thing that in the presence of such faith as this brought
human pity, sympathy and sorrow to its full, brought
dread and terror. Faith such as this they had
never conceived; faith such as this, if it was to
prove a shattered thing, was for its exponent to drink
the very dregs of misery and despair—­and
yet, rising above that possibility, flinging grim challenge
at their doubts, stood this very faith, mighty in
itself, perfect in its confidence, heroic in its agony,
that all might gaze upon from a common standpoint
and know—­as faith.

No whispering breeze stirred the young leaves in the
trees; in the stillness of the afternoon came only
the heavy, pulsing throb of Nature’s breathing.
One hundred, two, three hundred, they moved along,
slow, sinuous, troubled, their eyes straight before
them or upon the ground at their feet—­only
the children looked with frightened, startled eyes
into their parents’ faces, and clung the closer.

Out upon the wagon track they debouched and spread
in a long, thin line beneath the maples on either
side of the Flopper—­and waited.

—­X—­

THE MIRACLE

There was utter silence now—­the tread of
shuffling feet was gone—­no man moved—­it
seemed as though no man breathed—­they
stood as carven things, inanimate, men, women and
children strained forward, their faces drawn, tense
and rigid. In the very air, around them, everywhere,
imprisoning them, clutching like an icy hand at the
heart, something unseen, a dread, intangible presence
weighed them down and lay heavy upon them. What
was to come? What drear tragedy was to be enacted?
What awful mockery was to fall upon this maimed and
mutilated creature within whose deformed and pitiful
body there too was a human soul?

From the cottage door across the lawn came two figures—­a
girl in simple, clinging white, her head bowed, the
sun itself seeming to caress the dark brown wealth
of hair upon her head, changing it to glinting strands
of burnished copper; and beside her walked the Patriarch,
his hand resting lightly upon her arm, a wondrous
figure of a man, majestic, simple, grand, his silvered-hair
bared to the sun, his face illumined.

“There he is, mister!” whispered young
Holmes hoarsely. “There he is! Go
on, mister, go on—­see what he can do for
you!”

There came a sound that was like a great, gasping
intake of breath, as men and women watched. Out
toward the Patriarch, alone now, the Flopper began
to wriggle and writhe his way along. God in Heaven
have pity! What was this sight they looked upon—­this
poor, distorted, mangled thing that grovelled in the
earth—­that figure towering there in the
sunlight with venerable white beard and hair, erect,
symbolic of some strange, mystic power that awed them,
his head turned slightly in a curious listening attitude,
the sightless eyes closed, upon the face a great calm
like a solemn benediction.

Page 50

Fell a stillness that was as the stillness of death;
came a hush until in men’s ears was the quick,
fierce pound and throb of their own hearts. On,
on toward the Patriarch slithered and twisted that
frightful deformity that they had followed over that
long, torturing mile—­on, on he went, and
they watched scarce drawing breath, their faces white,
their very limbs held as in a palsied, fearsome spell—­and
then, sudden, abrupt, terrifying, there rose a shriek,
wild, hysterical, prolonged, in a woman’s voice,
the cadence wavering from guttural to shrill and ending
in a high-pitched, broken scream.

The Flopper halted and turned himself about, while
his left hand swept his livid face, brushing from
it the spurting drops, sweeping back the damp, tangled
hair from his eyes—­faced them till they
saw an agony on human countenance that struck, stabbing,
to their souls—­faced them while his eyes
traversed the long, long line of ghastly white faces
before him, out of which eyes everywhere, row on row
of them, straining, fixed, fascinated, seemed to burn
like living fires as they held him in their focus.

He had not gone far, perhaps ten yards—­no
more. By the group around the wheel-chair, almost
in the center of the line, stood Madison, his chin
in his hand in a meditative, thoughtful attitude, the
single soul who watched the scene from under lowered
lids; Thornton had involuntarily edged a little forward
from behind the chair until he stood now at its side
in a strange, abashed way as though his own personality
were over-ruled, obliterated, his face with a white
sternness upon it, his eyes, like all other eyes,
agleam with an unnatural fire; Mrs. Thornton had pulled
herself forward in the chair, one hand clutching at
her breast, the frail fingers of the other woven in
a grasp so tight around the arm of the chair that
the flesh was bloodless; a little way off, a group
of three, the two salesmen and the metropolitan newspaper
man, seemed as though stricken into stone, stripped
of all assurance, all complacence, awed, tense, palpitant,
as the patched, bare-legged tatterdemalion of ten
from the fields, that stood beside them, was awed
and tense and palpitant.

And away on either side stretched the line of white,
rigid faces, the never-ending, burning eyes—­but
the silence with that shriek was gone now, for another
woman and another, overwrought, needing but that sudden
shock to unnerve them utterly, shrieked in turn—­and
through the line seemed to run a shudder, and it moved
a little though no foot stirred, moved with a strange,
sinuous, rocking, swaying movement, from the hips,
backward and forward and to either side. Men raised
their eyes, stole frightened, questioning glances
at their neighbors—­and fixed their eyes
on the Flopper again—­on the Flopper and
that majestic figure in the center of the lawn, so
calm of mien, of attitude and pose.

Page 51

Once again the Flopper’s eyes swept the scene.
A few feet in advance of the crowd, as though drawn
irresistibly forward, young Holmes hung upon his crutch.
The boy’s soul seemed in his face—­hope,
a world of it, as he gazed at the Patriarch, sickening
fear as he looked at the Flopper; his lips moving
without sound, his body trembling with emotional excitement.
Still once again the Flopper’s eyes swept the
line of men and women and children, fast reaching
toward a common ungovernable hysteria—­and
then he turned with an unbalanced, impotent, broken
movement, flung out his good arm toward the Patriarch
in piteous supplication, and, jerking himself forward,
went on.

Slowly, very slowly at first, he resumed his way,
crawling it seemed by no more than a painful inch
on inch, in mortal pain, in mortal agony and struggle—­then
gradually his movements began to quicken, as though
growing upon him were a mad, elated haste that he could
not control—­quicker and quicker he went,
pitching and lurching wildly; from a pace that was
beyond him.

A strange, low, moaning sound rose from behind him,
fluttering, inarticulate, that voiceless utterance
that seeks to find some vent for human emotion when
human emotion sweeps with mighty surge to engulf the
soul. It rose and died away and rose again—­and
died away—­and children began to whimper
with a fear and terror that they did not understand,
and seeking solace in their elders’ faces found
added cause for fear instead.

Nearer to that saintly figure who stood so calm, so
quiet, the massive white-locked head still turned
a little in that curious listening attitude, beside
whom, close drawn now, was that white-clad girlish
form, whose eyes were lowered, whose sweet face seemed
to hold a heaven of pity and infinite compassion,
upon whose lips there was a smile of divine tenderness,
drew that piteous mockery of the image of a man, whose
every movement appeared one of agony beyond human power
to endure—­and the agony found echo in the
watchers’ souls, and a low, muffled groan as
of men in pain and hurt, ran tremulously along the
line.

Still nearer to the Patriarch drew the Flopper.
More heart-rending was his every movement, for with
his quickened pace he sought to move without the aid
of the only member that was as other men’s, his
left hand and arm that, in pleading, yearning supplication,
was stretched out before him to the Patriarch.

The extreme ends of the long line of watchers curled
a little inward, almost imperceptibly, a half step
taken without volition. The crippled boy, swaying
upon his crutch, his lips parted, trembling in every
limb, edged forward hesitantly, fearfully, now a foot,
now another, now the bare space of a single inch.
And now down the entire length of the line from end
to end that wavering, rocking movement in swaying,
pregnant unison grew stronger—­men knew
not what they did—­it seemed the very air
they breathed must smother them—­and, in
that dull, weird, lingering note, rose again the sound
of moaning that seemed to beat in consonance with
the distant mournful rhythm of the endless beat of
surf on shore.

Page 52

Women clutched at their breasts now; men’s knuckles
went white beneath the tight-drawn skin; the children
drew behind their mothers’ skirts and, terror-stricken,
cried aloud. Surcharged, on the edge, the bare
and ragged edge of frenzy now was every man and woman
in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that
racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred
them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery
of this blighted and crawling thing was their own
in its every twitch of agony—­that struck
them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable,
a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the
invoking of a supernal power—­the thought
of which very power, once loosed, chilled them with
panic-dread.

Yet still they watched—­it was beyond their
power to turn their eyes—­enthralled, a
moaning, swaying, rocking mob, they watched. Madness
was creeping upon them rampant. Like a mighty
tide, the ocean weight behind it, hurling itself against
flood-gates that could never stand, it mounted higher
and higher; and already, as the water first seeps between
the gates, grim forecast of what was to come, it showed
itself now in that long, sobbing, convulsive inhalation,
in that strange, sinuous, restless movement.

On went the Flopper. There was still a yard to
go—­two feet—­one.
Stopped in a sudden deathless hush was all sound.
The Flopper flung himself forward upon his face at
the Patriarch’s feet. Stopped was all movement,
haggard and tense every face, strained every eye.
For a moment that seemed to span eternity, in a huddled
heap, that crippled, twisted thing lay there before
them motionless, without sign of life—­the
venerable face above it, still intent, still listening,
turned slowly downwards. Then there was a movement,
a movement that blanched the watching faces to a more
pallid white—­that dangling, wobbling leg
drew inward slowly, very slowly, and hip and knee,
as though guided by some mighty power, immutable,
supreme, came deliberately into normal form.

A shriek, a cry, a wail, a sob, a prayer—­it
came now unrestrained—­hysteria was loosed
in a mad ungovernable orgasm—­men clutched
at each other and cowered, hiding their faces with
their hands—­women dropped to their knees
and, sobbing, screaming, prayed. Loud it rose,
the turmoil of human souls aghast and quailing before
a manifestation that seemed to fling them face to
face, uncovered, naked, before the awful power and
majesty and might of Heaven itself.

They looked again—­fearfully. The twisted
thing was standing now, standing but still deformed—­with
crooked neck, with curved, bent, palsied arm.
And nearer had drawn little Holmes, his head thrust
forward, shaking as with the ague as he gazed on the
group before him, oblivious to all else around him.

A twinge of frightful torture swept the Flopper’s
face—­and with that same slow, awful deliberation
the misshapen arm straightened out. Men cried
aloud again and again—­a woman fainted, another
here, another there—­children wailed and
ran, some shrieking, some whimpering, for the woods.

Page 53

Again the spasm crossed the Flopper’s face,
a shuddering, muscular contortion—­and from
the shoulder rose his head.

Inward drew the ends of the line of paroxysm-stricken
people—­not far, not near to that hallowed
group for something held them back; but inward gradually
until the line, no longer straight, was half a circle,
crescent shaped. Louder came that harrowing medley
of sounds, its component parts voicing the uttermost
depths of the soul of each separate individual man
and woman there—­some moaned in terror; some
prayed, mumbling, still upon their knees; some laughed
hoarsely, wildly, their senses for the moment gone;
and some were dumb; and some shrieked their prayers
in frenzy. Louder it grew—­the end had
come—­that deformed thing stood erect, a
perfect man—­he turned his face toward them—­he
stretched out his arms—­and they answered
him with their wails, their sobs, their moans, their
cries—­they answered him in their terror,
in their shaken senses, clutching at each other again—­answered
him from their knees, their voices hoarse—­answered
him with trembling lips and tongues that would not
move.

And then suddenly, as though riven where they stood
and kneeled and crouched, all movement ceased—­and
every heart stood still as ringing clear above all
else, shocking all else to stunned, petrified silence,
there came a cry—­a cry in a young voice.
It rang again and again, trembling with glad, new
life, vibrant, a cry that seemed to thrill with chords
of happiness and ecstasy immeasurable. Again it
came, again, exultant, pulsing with a mighty joy—­young
Holmes had flung his crutch from him, and,
with outstretched arms, was running toward the Patriarch
across the lawn.

For an instant more that stunned, awed silence held.
All eyes were riveted and fixed upon the scene—­none
looked at Madison—­if any had they would
have seen that his face had gone an ivory white.

—­XI—­

THE AFTERMATH

“I am cured, Robert! Robert! Robert!
See, I too am cured! Oh, Robert, what wondrous
joy!”—­Mrs. Thornton had left her wheel-chair
and was standing beside her husband, standing alone,
unaided for the first time in many months.

“Naida!”—­it was a hoarse cry
from Thornton. Then his hand passed heavily across
his face as though to force his brain to coherent action,
to lift the spell of what seemed a wild phantasm in
all around him. “Naida!”—­he
sought now to control his voice—­“Naida,
get back into your chair again.”

She laughed—­a little hysterically—­but
in the laugh too was the uplift of a soul enraptured.

“But I am cured, Robert. See, dear, can’t
you understand?” She shook his arm. “See—­I
am cured. I can walk just as I could before I
was ill. Oh, Robert, Robert! See! See!”—­she
went from him, walking a little, running a little—­and
laughing in a low, rippling, glorious laugh that was
like the music of silver chimes ringing out in glad
acclaim.

Page 54

He stared at her, both hands now to his temples; then
he turned to look strangely at the empty chair—­but
it was not empty. Miss Harvey, the nurse, on
her knees, had flung herself across it and, with buried
head, was sobbing unrestrainedly.

And now upon the lawn was a scene indescribable.
The long line was broken. Men and women ran hither
and thither, for the most part aimlessly, as though
in some strange state of coma where the mind refused
its functions. They talked and cried and shouted
at each other in frenzy without knowing what they
said—­some with tears raining down their
faces, others with blank countenances, no sign of emotion
upon them other than in their wild, dilated eyes.
Here and there they rushed without volition, their
throat-noises rising above them, floating through
the still air in a sound that no ear had ever heard
before, weird, terrifying, without license, beyond
control. Like mad creatures rushing against each
other in the dark they were, stupified by a sight
that was no mortal sight, a sight that blinded them
mentally because it was no human sight.

Faith? Faith is a matter of degree, is it not?

Or is it at its full in power and efficacy at moments
when hysteria in paroxysm is at its height? Who
shall define faith? Who shall say what it is,
and who shall place its limitations upon it?

Out in the center of the lawn young Holmes was in
his mother’s arms, the father pathetically trying
to wrap both mother and child in his own. Around
them, attracted in that strange uncertain way, the
crowd constantly grew larger. Further out again,
Helena was leading the Patriarch toward the cottage,
the Flopper close behind her—­the Patriarch
walking with a slow tread, his head still turned a
little in that listening attitude—­and at
a distance followed a straggling crowd. Then
the cottage door was shut—­and Helena, the
Patriarch and the Flopper disappeared from view.

A dozen yards from the wheel-chair stood Madison,
riveted to the spot, motionless save for a nervous
twitching of the lips, his eyes, now upon the invalid
who walked about, now on the little lad who had thrown
away his crutch. Some one plucked at his sleeve,
but Madison gave no heed—­again his arm
was pulled, and he turned to look into Pale Face Harry’s
face. The other’s countenance was gray,
the eyes full of a shrinking, terrified light.

The words seemed to rouse Madison—­to leadership.
He stared at Pale Face Harry for a moment, then a
grim smile flickered across his face.

“Something in it!” he repeated with an
ironic laugh—­and suddenly grabbed Pale
Face Harry’s arm and shook him. “There’s
so much in it that I’m drunk with it, crazy
with it—­but I’m trying to make myself
believe it isn’t too good to be true. Get
that? Get a grip on that, and hang on. Don’t
lose your nerve, Harry!”

Page 55

“You’re right,” admitted Madison
frankly. “I’m queer, but I’m
coming around. Helena seems to be the only one
who never lost her grip—­she’s got
the Patriarch and the Flopper out of the way and under
cover. Brace up, Harry—­what I thought
we’d get in the Roost that night is counterfeit
money to what’ll come from this.”
His eyes fastened on a figure that, separating itself
from the group around young Holmes, now dashed frantically,
hatless, and with dishevelled hair to Mr. and Mrs.
Thornton. “Who’s that, Harry?
He came down on the train with you—­know
him?”

“He’s only some newspaper guy or other,”
answered Pale Face Harry mechanically, his eyes still
roving wildly over the scene around him.

“Oh, is that all!” ejaculated Madison
with a little gasp. “I’ve already
exhausted my thanks to Santa Claus and here he comes
with another package done up in dinky pink paper tied
with baby ribbon—­and the gold platter it’s
on goes with it!”

“What d’ye mean?” asked Pale Face
Harry heavily.

The newspaper man, the instinct of his calling now
rising paramount to all else, had left the Thorntons
and was tearing for the wagon track on his way to
the station and the telegraph office like one possessed.

“By to-morrow morning,” said Madison softly,
“the missionaries will be explaining this to
the Esquimaux at Oo-lou-lou, the near-invalids in
California will be packing their trunks, likewise those
in the languid shade of the Florida palms; they’ll
be listing it on the stock exchange in New York, and
the breath of Eden will waft itself o’er plain
and valley until—­” he stopped suddenly,
as Mrs. Thornton’s voice reached him.

“Don’t you understand?” she cried,
half laughing, half sobbing. “There is
no ’yet’—­I am cured, dear—­all
cured. I’m well and strong. Try to
understand, Robert—­oh, I’m so happy,
so—­so thankful. I know it’s
miraculous, that it’s almost impossible to believe—­but
try to understand.”

“I am trying to,” said Thornton numbly,
watching her as she moved about. “And it
seems as though I were in a dream—­that this
isn’t real—­that you’re not
real.”

“It’s not a dream,” she said.
“Oh, I’m so strong again. Why, Robert,
it would be just as absurd for me to be wheeled back
in that chair as for you to be—­and besides
I have no right to do that now. It would be a
sacrilege, profaning the gratitude in my heart—­I
am cured and these poor people here must see that
I am cured—­Robert, we must leave that wheel-chair
here that others, poor sufferers who will come now,
will see and believe and be cured too. And, Robert,
in some way, I do not know just how, we who are rich
must do something to help people to get here.”

Page 56

“Naida,” said Thornton, his voice low,
shaken, “I feel as though I were in another
world. I have seen what I can hardly make myself
believe that I have seen. I can’t explain—­I
am speaking, but my very voice seems strange to me.
I feel as you do about helping others—­how
could I feel otherwise? What we could do I do
not know as yet, either—­but I will do anything.
I was a scoffing fool—­and you were cured
before my eyes—­a boy was cured—­and
that other, deformed as no creature was ever deformed
before, was cured”—­Thornton’s
lips quivered, and he hid his face in his hands.

“While the iron is hot—­strike,”
murmured Madison. He gazed a moment longer at
the group—­Mrs. Thornton’s hand was
on her husband’s shoulder now—­then
his eyes roved over the frenzied scenes still being
enacted everywhere upon the lawn. “I wonder?”
he muttered. The frown on his forehead cleared
suddenly. “Of course!” said he to
Pale Face Harry. “It’s a cinch—­it’s
as good as done!”

Pale Face Harry stared at him queerly.

“No, Harry,” smiled Madison, “my
pulse is quite normal now, thank you. Listen.
This is where we call the first showdown on cold hands—­and
the dealer slips himself an ace.” He drew
a key from his pocket and put it in Pale Face Harry’s
hand. “That’s the key of the small
trunk in my room at the hotel—­front room,
right hand side of the hall. There’s a
check-book in the tray—­and I’ll give
you twenty minutes to get back here with it.
You’ll find me somewhere around here, but you
needn’t let the whole earth in on the presentation—­see?
Now beat it!”

As Pale Face Harry hurried away, Madison, seemingly
as aimless, as hysterical as the hundreds about him,
moved here and there, but unostentatiously he kept
nearing the upper end of the lawn, and, finally, hidden
by the woodshed at the further end of the cottage,
he slipped quickly around to the rear. Here the
garden stretched almost to the edge of the sandy beach—­not
a soul was in sight—­and the beat of the
surf deadened the sound from the front lawn to little
more than a low, indistinct murmur.

Quickly now, Madison stepped to where one of the old-fashioned
windows, that swung inward from the center like double
doors, was open, and, reaching in his hand, tapped
sharply twice in succession with his knuckles on the
pane. The sill was not quite on a level with his
shoulders and he could see inside—­it was
Helena’s room, and the door to the hall was
open. Again he knocked. Came then the sound
of footsteps—­and from the hall the Flopper’s
face peered cautiously around the jamb of the door.

“Tell Helena to come here,” called Madison
softly.

The Flopper turned his head, called obediently, and
in a dazed sort of way came himself to the window.
His face was haggard, and he shivered as he licked
his lips.

“I pulled de stunt,” said the Flopper
in a croaking voice, “but de kid—­Doc—­did
youse see de kid? I got de shakes—­it’s
like de whole of hell an’ de other place was
loose, an’ Helena’s gone batty, an’—­pipe
her, dere she is.”

Page 57

Into the room came Helena, her face like chalk—­all
color gone from even her lips. She clutched at
the window beside the Flopper for support.

Madison did not speak for a moment—­Madison
was a consummate leader. He looked, smiling reassuringly,
from one to the other—­and then leaned soothingly,
confidentially, in over the sill.

“I know how you feel—­felt just the
same myself for a bit,” said he quietly.
“But now look here, you’ve got to pull
yourselves together—­there’s nothing
to be afraid of. It’s natural enough.
It’s faith, Helena—­and that’s
what we were banking on—­only not quite so
hard. That kid and Mrs. Thornton annexed the real
brand, that’s all—­and when the genuine
thing is on tap I cross my fingers and yell for faith—­there’s
nothing to stop it. And that’s the way it’s
got both of you too, eh? Well, that only makes
our game the safer and the more certain, doesn’t
it? So, come on now, pull yourselves together.”

“In de last act when I was gettin’ me
head into joint,” mumbled the Flopper, “was
when de kid yelled—­I can hear it yet, an’—­”

“Forget it!” Madison broke in a little
sharply; then, tactfully, his voice full of unbounded
admiration: “You’re an artist, Flopper—­a
wonder. You pulled the greatest act that was ever
on the boards, and you pulled it as no other man on
earth could have pulled it. Flopper, you make
me feel humble when I look at you.”

“Sure!” said the Flopper. “Dat’s
de way to talk—­leave it to de Doc every
time—. I ain’t feazed half de way
I was.”

“I’m all right,” said Helena a little
tremulously. “What is it we’re to
do?”

“Good!” said Madison, smiling at her approvingly.
“That sounds better. Now listen—­and
listen hard. From this minute this cottage is
the Shrine. Get that?—­Shrine.
You’ve got to keep the hush falling here, and
keep it falling all the time—­a sort of holy,
hallowed silence, understand? Lay it on thick—­make
the crowd stand back—­make the guy that
comes in here feel as though he ought to come in on
his knees and as if he’d be struck dead if he
didn’t. Get the slow music and the low
lights working. And keep the Patriarch well back
of the drop except when he’s on for a turn.
Get me? He’s no side-show with a barker
in front of the tent—­don’t forget
that for a minute. The harder it is to see the
Patriarch and the less he’s seen, the bigger
he plays up when he’s on. He goes to no
man under any conditions, and the only man or woman
that gets to him is through faith and supplication,
and a double order of it at that. Keep the solemn,
breathless tap turned on all the time.”

Page 58

Helena looked at him with a strange little smile quivering
on her lips.

“It’s a good thing I’ve got a sense
of humor,” she said slowly, “or else I
think I’d—­I’d—­”

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Madison
cheerfully. “But time’s flying.
You’re going to have visitors in a few minutes,
and here’s where the Patriarch gets tucked away
out of sight behind the veil for a starter, leaving
his presence hovering and throbbing all around in
the air—­you stay with him, Flopper, in
a back room somewhere and hold his hand. Where
is he now?”

“In his armchair in the sitting-room,”
said Helena. “And he’s still listening
in that queer way he did out on the lawn. I think
he knows in a little way what’s happened.”

“That’s good,” said Madison; “it’ll
make him happy. Well, lead him gently into retirement.
I guess that’s all—­now hurry.”

“Who is it that’s coming?” interposed
Helena quickly, as Madison started away from the window.

Madison grinned.

“Some friends of the Hopper’s. Mr.
and Mrs. Thankoffering—­you’ll like
them immensely, Helena. The lady walks quite well
now, and—­”

“Walks!” exclaimed the Flopper, who evidently
had not assimilated Madison’s previous reference
to Mrs. Thornton. “De lady dat I come wid
in de private car—­walks?”

“Of course,” said Madison pleasantly.

“Cured? All cured?” gasped the Flopper.

“Of course,” said Madison again—­complacently.

“Say,” said the Flopper, “say, I’m
goin’ dippy. Another one de same as de
kid, Doc?”

“Same as the kid, Flopper—­faith.”

“Swipe me!” said the Flopper helplessly.

—­XII—­

“SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY”

By the wheel-chair, Mrs. Thornton, her husband and
Doc Madison were in earnest conversation—­and
around them was a mass of people. The crowd had
divided into two, or, rather, was constantly coming
and going between two points—­young Holmes
and Mrs. Thornton—­and still the hysteria
was upon men and women, still that wavering, moanlike
sound floated over the lawn.

“I am stunned and stupified,” Madison
was saying, and his hand trembled visibly in its outflung
gesture. “I am not, I am afraid, a man of
deep sensibilities, but I cannot help feeling that
I have been permitted, been chosen even, to witness
this sight, a sight that will stay with me till I
die, for some great, ulterior purpose. It’s
as though this place were hallowed, set apart; that
here, if only one has faith, that man’s miraculous
power is boundless—­that I should help someway.
I—­I’m afraid I don’t explain
myself well.”

“I know what you mean,” Mrs. Thornton
returned eagerly. “It is what I was saying
to my husband—­to make this place known,
to help to bring suffering people here.”

Madison nodded silently.

“And if you, who have no personal cause for
gratitude, feel like that, how much more should we
who—­who—­oh, there are no words
to tell it—­my heart is too full”—­Mrs.
Thornton smiled through tears. “Robert,
you said you would do anything.”

Page 59

“Yes, dear,” Thornton answered gravely.
“But what? We cannot do things in a moment.
If money—­”

Madison shook his head.

“It’s beyond money,” he said.
“Money is only a secondary consideration.
It’s the needs of the place that are paramount.
It’s not so much the bringing of people here—­they
will hear of what has taken place and will come of
their own accord, they will flock here in numbers as
time goes on. But then—­what?
What can be done with them in this little village?
For a time perhaps they could be accommodated—­but
after that they must be turned away.”

“Turned away!” exclaimed Mrs. Thornton,
in a hurt cry. “Turned away from hope—­to
bitterness and misery again! No, no, they must
not I Why”—­she grasped her husband’s
arm agitatedly—­“why couldn’t
we buy land and put little houses upon it where they
could stay?”

Madison leaned suddenly toward her.

“I believe you’ve hit on the idea, Mrs.
Thornton,” he said excitedly. “Why
not? It would be the finest thing that was ever
done in the world. But why not go further—­this
should not be a private enterprise with the burden
on the few.” He turned abruptly to Mr. Thornton.
“What a monument from grateful hearts, what
a tribute to that saintly soul a huge sanatorium,
built and properly endowed, would be! And it is
feasible—­purely from the voluntary contributions
of those who come here and have money—­free
as the air to the poor who are sick—­free
to all, for that matter—­no one asked
to give—­but the poorest would gladly lay
down their mites.”

“Yes—­oh, yes!” cried Mrs. Thornton
raptly.

“Yes,” admitted Mr. Thornton thoughtfully;
“that might be done.”

“There is no doubt of it,” asserted Madison
enthusiastically. “It needs but the initiative
on the part of some one, on our part, and the rest
will take care of itself. But we must, of course,
have the endorsement of the Patriarch—­why
not go to the cottage now, at once, and talk it over?”

“Can we see him?” asked Mrs. Thornton
wistfully. “Oh, I would like to kneel at
his feet and pour out my gratitude. But see how
all these people go no nearer than that row of trees,
as though love or fear or reverence kept them from
going further, as though it were almost forbidden,
holy ground, as though they were held back by an invisible
barrier in spite of themselves.”

“True,” said Madison; “and I sense
that very thing myself—­all men must sense
it after what has taken place, all must feel the presence
of a power too majestic, too full of awe for the mind
to grasp. This faith”—­he threw
out his hands in an impotent gesture—­“we
can only accept it unquestioningly, as a mighty thing,
an actual, living, existent thing, even if we cannot
fully understand. But I feel that with what we
have in mind we have a right to go there now—­and
we should take that little lad who was cured as well—­and
his parents, they should come too.”

Page 60

“And shall we see him?” Mrs. Thornton
asked again tensely.

“Why, I do not know,” Madison replied;
“but at least we shall see his niece, Miss Vail,
and it is with her in any case that we would have to
discuss the plan, for the Patriarch, you know, is deaf
and dumb and blind.”

“You know them, don’t you?” Thornton
inquired.

Madison smiled, a little strangely, a little deprecatingly.

“If one can speak of ‘knowing’ such
as they—­yes,” he answered. “When
I came two weeks ago, the Patriarch was not wholly
blind, and he was very kind to me. I learned
to love the gentle soul of the man, and in a way,
skeptical though I was, I felt his power—­but
I never realized until this afternoon how stupendous,
how immeasurable it was.”

“Let us go to the cottage, then,” said
Thornton. “Naida, dear, let me help you;
it is quite a little distance and—­”

She put out her hands in a happy, intimate way to
hold him off.

“You can’t realize it, Robert, can you?
That dear, practical business head of yours makes
it even harder for you than it is for me—­and
I can hardly realize it myself. But I am
cured, dear, and I’m well and strong, and I
don’t need any help—­why, Robert, I
am going to help you now, instead of always being
a source of worry and anxiety to you. Come, let
us go.”

“If you will walk slowly,” suggested Madison,
“I’ll speak to the little Holmes boy and
his parents, and bring them with us.”

He moved away as he spoke—­in the direction
of a racking cough, that rose above the confused,
murmuring, whispering, shaken voices on every hand;
and in a little knot of people he was, for a moment,
pressed close against Pale Face Harry.

“All right,” whispered Pale Face Harry,
“it’s in your pocket now—­but,
say, no more runs like that for me, I’m all in.
I thought sure I was cured myself—­I hadn’t
coughed for—­”

“Never mind about that now,” said Madison
rapidly. “I want the crowd kept away from
the doors of the bank vault if they show any tendency
to get too close, though I don’t think that’ll
happen—­they’re too numbed and scared
yet. But you know the game. Keep the awe
going and the ’holy ground’ signs up.
Anybody that steps across that stretch between the
trees and the cottage on and after the present date
of writing does it with bowed head and his shoes off—­get
the idea?”

Pale Face Harry grinned.

“That’s easy,” he said. “Anything’d
steer ’em now—­they’re like sheep.
Leave it to me to keep the soft pedal on.”

With a nod, Madison turned away, the tense expression
on his face assumed again—­and presently
he was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, and patting
the boy’s head in a clumsy, overwrought way.

“I—­I don’t dar’st to
go,” said Mrs. Holmes, clutching wildly at the
boy, still sobbing, still beyond control of herself.

“But Mrs. Thornton is going,” said Madison
gently, “and I know your gratitude is no less
than hers—­it couldn’t be less with
this little lad restored to you. I am sure you
want to show it—­don’t you?”

It was a strange group—­the Thorntons, rich,
refined, to whom luxury was necessity; the Holmes,
poor, uncultured, coarsely dressed; and Madison, who
walked with set face, head lowered a little, his pace
slowing perceptibly, humbly it seemed, the nearer
he came to the cottage door. Neither Thornton,
nor Holmes, nor Holmes’ wife spoke. Mrs.
Thornton’s arm was flung around the boy’s
shoulder, and he kept looking up into her tearful
face—­there was a bond between them that,
young as he was, held him in its thrall. Out
across the lawn, dotted here and there, in knots and
groups and little crowds, men and women stopped where
they stood and watched, making no effort to follow—­and
some, at the renewed evidence of the miraculous, once
more so vividly before their eyes, dropped again to
their knees.

They reached the door, and Madison drew back a little
and with the others waited silently after he had knocked.
Then the door opened slowly, and Helena, slim and
girlish in her simple white dress, appeared upon the
threshold. Her great dark eyes travelled slowly
from one to another, and then her face lighted with
a gentle smile.

“Miss Vail,” said Madison diffidently,
“this is Mrs. Thornton and her husband, and
the little lad, with his parents, who owes so much
to the Patriarch, and they have come to—­”

“To try and say a little of what is in their
hearts”—­Mrs. Thornton stepped impulsively
forward and held out her hands to Helena—­and
then, breaking down suddenly, she began to sob, and
the two were in each other’s arms, Mrs. Thornton’s
head buried on Helena’s shoulder, Helena’s
face lowered, her brown hair mingling with the gold
of the other’s, her arms about the frail form
that shook convulsively.

Doc Madison shot a covert glance at the three behind
him—­Thornton, and Holmes, and Mrs. Holmes.
Holmes, with downcast eyes, was shuffling awkwardly
from foot to foot; Mrs. Holmes, her woman’s instinct
touched, was watching the scene with face aglow, her
eyes moist anew; Thornton was staring fascinated at
Helena, a sort of breathless, wondering admiration
in his eyes.

Madison involuntarily followed Thornton’s look;
then stole a glance back at Thornton again—­Thornton
was still gazing intently at Helena.

“Say,” observed Madison to himself, “the
longer you live the more you learn, don’t you?
That’s the kind of stuff Helena wears from now
on, the clinging white with the bare throat effect
and all that. Why, say, like that she’s
what the poets call radiantly divine—­eh,
what?”

Mrs. Thornton raised her head, and her hands creeping
to Helena’s face brushed the brown hair tenderly
back from the white forehead.

Page 62

“Oh, how good and sweet and pure you are!”
she murmured brokenly.

A quick, sudden flush, passing to all but Madison
as one of demure and startled modesty, swept in a
crimson tide to Helena’s face.

“You—­you must not say that,”
she faltered, shaking her head. “I—­you
must not say that.”

REAL MONEY

The two women passed inside the cottage, Mrs. Thornton
holding out her hand again to the little lad; while
Holmes and his wife followed hesitantly, awed.
In the rear, Thornton grasped Madison’s arm suddenly.

“I never saw such a beautiful face,” he
whispered tensely. “It’s wonderful.”

Madison quietly took the chair nearest the table;
Thornton one a little in front of Madison and nearer
his wife and Helena, who were close by the big, open
fireplace; the two Holmes sat down on the edges of
chairs a little behind Madison; while young Holmes
knelt, his arms in Mrs. Thornton’s lap, his
head turned a little sideways, his chin cupped in
one hand, as he stared breathlessly around him.

It was the boy who broke the momentary silence.

“Ain’t that other fellow here, neither—­the
fellow that was worse’n me?” he whispered.

Helena leaned toward him.

Page 63

“Yes; he is here,” she answered, smiling
sweetly. “He is with the Patriarch.”
She lifted her head to include the others in her words.
“It is very wonderful, his gratitude. He
will not leave the Patriarch—­he says he
will not leave him ever, that all he has to give for
the debt he owes is the life that the Patriarch gave
back to him, and he will listen to nothing but that
he should devote that life to the Patriarch’s
service.”

“I’d like to, too,” said young Holmes,
with a quick flush on his face. “Can I,
miss—­can I?”

“Perhaps,” said Helena gently. “Who
knows what there may be that you can do?”

“Dear boy,” said Mrs. Thornton, stroking
the lad’s head. She looked quickly at Helena.
“We, too, are grateful, more than there are words
to tell, and we, too, would like to show our gratitude.
We are rich and money—­”

“Money!” the word came in shocked, hurt
interruption from Helena, as a signal flashed from
Madison’s eyes. “The Patriarch does
not do these things for money—­it would
be a bitter grief to him to be misjudged in that way,
even in thought. It is the love in his heart for
the suffering ones, and his power goes out to all
who ask it freely, with no thought of recompense or
gain, and his joy and happiness is the joy and happiness
of others.”

“And right off the bat too!” said Madison
admiringly to himself. “Now, wouldn’t
that get you! Say, could you beat it—­could
you beat it!”

“Oh, I did not mean that,” said Mrs. Thornton
almost piteously. “Please, please do not
think so, for I know so well that money in a personal
sense could have no place here, that it would indeed
be sacrilege. It is in quite another way—­Robert,
Mr. Madison, you explain what we would like to do.”

It was Madison who explained.

“It is Mrs. Thornton’s idea, Miss Vail,”
he said earnestly; “and it is one that I know
will realize the Patriarch’s dearest wish—­to
extend his sphere of helpfulness to others, to reach
out to all who are stricken and have faith to come.
I remember his writing that on the slate, which he
used for conversation before his sight was completely
taken from him. I remember the words as though
they were before me now: ’I have dreamed
often of a wider field, of reaching out to help the
thousands beyond this little town—­it would
be wondrous joy.’”

“Yes?” said Helena in a suppressed voice.

“In a way,” Madison went on gravely, “his
dream is already realized. What has happened
here this afternoon will in a few hours be known to
the whole civilized world, and there will be no room
for incredulity or doubt—­on whatever ground
people see fit to base their belief, they must still
believe; and, believing, they will come here in ever
increasing numbers—­but this little village
is totally inadequate to accommodate them. At
first, yes, as I said to Mrs. Thornton; but afterwards—­no.
Mrs. Thornton’s idea, Mr. Thornton’s idea
and my own, if I may say so, is to build and endow
a great sanatorium that, in consonance with the Patriarch’s
ideals, shall be free to all—­and we feel
that the money for this purpose will come gladly and
spontaneously, as it so appropriately should come,
from those who find joy and peace and health again
at the Patriarch’s hands.”

Page 64

Helena half rose from her chair, as she stole a veiled
glance at Madison.

“It would be wonderful,” she said, with
a little catch in her voice. “And he—­it
would be the one thing in the world for him. But—­but
it would take a great deal of money.”

“Yes,” said Madison slowly; “at
least half a million.”

Thornton turned toward Madison.

“As much as that?” he asked tentatively.

“I should say so,” replied Madison thoughtfully.
“You see, it’s the endowment after all
that is the most important. Say that the building
and equipment cost only a hundred thousand, that would
only leave an income, from the other four hundred
thousand at six per cent., of twenty-four thousand
dollars—­not enough in itself even, but it
would be augmented of course by the contributions
that would still go on.”

Thornton nodded his head.

“That is so,” he agreed; “but there
is the time to consider—­it would take a
long time to raise that amount.”

“No,” said Madison. “A few
months at the outside. Thornton”—­he
reached out and laid his hand impressively on the
other’s sleeve—­we are not dealing
with ordinary things here—­we have witnessed
this afternoon a sight that should teach us that.
Here, in this very room, beside us now, your wife,
that little boy, is evidence of power beyond anything
we have ever known before. Have we not that same
power to count on still? It would be an ingrate
heart indeed that, owing all, returned nothing.”

“Yes,” murmured Mrs. Thornton. “Mr.
Madison is right. I know it, I feel it—­the
money will come faster than we have any idea of.”

Madison smiled at her quietly.

“It will come,” he said. “People
will give their money, their jewels, anything, and
give joyfully—­and until the amount in hand
is large enough to warrant beginning operations, Miss
Vail naturally will be its guardian.”

“I?” said Helena hesitatingly. “I—­I
am only a girl, I would not know what to do.”

“You would not have to do anything, Miss Vail,”
Madison informed her reassuringly. “When
the time comes for advice, the making of plans and
the carrying of them out, the brightest minds in this
country will be offered freely and voluntarily, you
will see.”

“Of course!” said Madison. “And
not only here, but openly displayed as an added incentive
for others to give—­if added incentive be
needed. Here, for instance”—­he
rose as he spoke, went to the mantel over the fireplace
and lifted down a quaint, japanned box, fashioned in
the shape of a little chest, which he placed upon
the table. “And here, too”—­he
crossed to the bookshelves in the alcove, and took
down a very old, flexible-covered book. “Once,”
he said, “the Patriarch showed me this.
It was a blank book originally, half of it is blank

Page 65

still; but in the front, in the Patriarch’s
own writing, is an essay he wrote in the years gone
by on ’The Power of Faith’—­what
could be more fitting than that the remaining pages
should be filled with a record of the contributions
to that faith?” He laid the book on the table
beside the little chest, and sat down again.
“There is no display, no ornamentation, no attempt
at anything of that kind—­it is simplicity,
those things serving which are first at hand—­as
it seems to me it should be—­those who give
record their names and gifts in this book—­the
little chest to hold the gifts is open, free to the
inspection of all.”

“But is that wise?” demurred Thornton.
“So large a sum of money as must accumulate
to be left openly about? Would it not be a temptation
to some to steal? Might it not even endanger
Miss Vail and the Patriarch himself—­subject
them, indeed, to attack?”

“I get your idea,” said Madison to himself—­while
he gazed at Thornton in pained surprise; “but
there’ll never be more than the day’s catch
in the box at a time, though of course you don’t
know that. You see, we’ll empty it every
night, and start it off fresh every morning, with a
trinket or two put back for bait. I’m glad
you mentioned it though, it’s a little detail
I mustn’t forget to speak to the Flopper about.”
But aloud he said, and there was a sort of shocked
awe in his voice: “Steal—­here!
In this sacred place! No man would dare—­the
most hardened criminal would draw back. Why do
even we who sit here speak as we have been speaking
with hushed and lowered voices?—­that very
sense of a presence unseen around us, that hovers
over us, is a mightier safeguard than the strongest
bolts and locks, than the steel-barred vaults of any
bank. It would seem indeed to profane our own
faith even to entertain such an idea—­to
me this place is a solemn shrine, and there is only
purity and faith and stillness here, the dwelling place
of a power as compassionate as it is mighty.”

Madison stopped abruptly—­and a silence
fell. Each seemed busy with their own thoughts.
About them was quiet, stillness, peace—­twilight
was falling, and a soft, mellow light was in the room.

“No one would dare”—­the words
came from Mrs. Thornton in almost breathless corroboration,
almost of their own accord it seemed, as though heavy
upon her lay the solemnity of her surroundings.

Madison’s hand went to his pocket—­slowly
he drew out his check-book and laid it upon the table.

“I am not a rich man”—­his voice
was very low, very earnest—­“but I
feel that this is something deeper, grander, bigger
than anything the world perhaps has ever known before;
something higher and above one’s own self; it
seems as though here were the chrysalis that, once
developed to its perfect state, would sweep pain and
sorrow from suffering humanity; it is as though a
new, glad era had dawned for all mankind. I am
glad to give and humbly proud to have a part in this.”
He took out his fountain pen, opened the check-book,
and began to write.

Page 66

Thornton leaned forward a little, watching him.

Silence fell again—­there was no sound save
the almost inaudible scratching of Madison’s
pen. Upon Mrs. Thornton’s face was a happy,
radiant smile; Helena’s face was impassive, but
in the dark eyes lurked a puzzled light; the two Holmes
sat awkwardly, still upon the edges of their chairs,
gazing at their son across the room, incredulously,
as though they still could not believe—­and
occasionally Mrs. Holmes wiped her eyes.

Madison’s pen moved on: “Pay to the
order of Miss Helena Vail the sum of ten thousand
dollars.” He carefully inscribed the amount
in numerals in the lower left-hand corner. “Honest,”
he confided to himself, as he signed the check, “I
feel so philanthropic I could almost make myself believe
I had this money in the bank.” He tore the
check from its stub, and, standing up, handed it to
Helena. “I am not a rich man, Miss Vail,
as I said,” he smiled gravely, “but I can
give this, and I give it with great joy in my heart.”

Helena took the check, glanced at it, gasped a little,
lifted her eyes, an instant’s mocking glint
in them, and veiled them quickly with her long lashes.

“No”—­Madison’s hand,
palm up, went out protestingly—­“no,
do not thank me—­it is little enough.”
He sat down again, drew the Patriarch’s blank
book toward him, and, on the line beneath the one where
the Patriarch had ended his essay with the words,
“such is the power of faith,” wrote his
name and set down the amount of his contribution after
it.

“Ten thousand dollars!”—­it
was Mrs. Thornton speaking, as she took the check
from Helena. She turned quickly to her husband.
“Robert, have you your check-book here?”

Thornton shook his head.

“No, dear,” he said. “I’m
afraid I haven’t.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said
Mrs. Thornton brightly. “You can use one
of Mr. Madison’s checks and write the name of
your own bank on it—­you’ve often
done that, you know.”

“A suggestion,” said Madison to himself,
“for which I thank you, Mrs. Thornton—­it
sounds so much less crude coming from you than from
me.” But aloud he said courteously, “Take
my pen, Mr. Thornton.”

“Thank you,” said Thornton, as Madison
placed it in his hand.

Mrs. Thornton and her husband had their heads together
now, and were whispering—­Thornton with
his eyes on Helena, who sat with lowered head, twirling
Madison’s check in her hands. Then Thornton
drew the check-book toward him, scratched out the
printed name of the bank that it bore, wrote in another,
and went on filling out the check.

“Eeny-meeny-miny-mo,” said Madison to
himself. “The suspense is awful. How
much does he raise the ante? Next to the miracle,
this is the first real thrill I’ve had—­I
feel like an elevator starting down quick.”

As Madison had done, Thornton tore out the check and
handed it to Helena. Helena stared at it, lifted
her eyes to Thornton, flushed—­and looked
down at the check again.

Page 67

“Fifty thousand,” she murmured
breathlessly.

“Splendid!” cried Madison enthusiastically,
rising from his chair and pushing the newly established
record of contributions toward Thornton. “Splendid!
There’s sixty thousand of the five hundred already.
Splendid!”

Young Holmes ran toward his parents.

“I want to give too, dad,” he whispered.
“I want to give too.”

“Reckon so,” said Holmes, getting up heavily.
“Reckon so—­an’ I was a-goin’
to. I ain’t got much though,” he added
timorously, as his hand went into his pocket.

There was a little exclamation from Helena, and she
moved a step forward as though to interpose.
Madison looked at her quickly—­and quietly
stepped around the table, placing himself between her
and Holmes; and, facing Holmes, leaned over the table
from the far side toward the other.

“It’s not the amount, Holmes,” he
said kindly. “In the broad, true sense
the amount counts for nothing—­all cannot
give the same.”

“Yes,” said Holmes. “Reckon
that’s the way I feel.” He counted
the bills in his hand, and dropped them into the little
japanned box; then scrawled his name in the book beneath
Thornton’s, adding the amount—­eight
dollars.

Madison looked around the group benignantly.

“I think they should know out there what we
have done,” he said, pointing toward the lawn.
“Let us go and tell them, not in any set speech,
but just simply—­each of us speaking to a
few—­the few will tell others. Shall
we go?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Thornton. “Yes;
let us tell them.” She turned to Helena
and kissed her. “Try and come often to see
me, dear—­we shall be here now for a little
while at least. Is it asking too much? Robert
will bring you back and forth from the village.
And perhaps, if I may, I will come out here to see
you—­may I?”

“I shall be very glad to do as my wife suggests,”
said Thornton, holding out his hand. “You
will come, Miss Vail?”

“You are very good, both of you,” Helena
answered simply. She raised her eyes to Thornton—­her
hand was still in his. “Yes, I will try
to come.”

“Oh, break away!” muttered Madison impatiently—­but
silently. He stepped to the door and opened it.
“Will you lead the way, Mrs. Thornton?”
he said calmly.

Thornton and his wife passed out; and the Holmes,
with clumsy, earnest words upon their lips to Helena,
followed. Madison hung back—­then stepped
quickly to Helena.

“Tear up that check of mine so small you can’t
find the pieces, Helena,” he said hurriedly;
“and send Thornton’s right off to any old
bank you like in New York. Endorse it, and write
them a note saying you wish to open an account.
Enclose your signature, and tell them to mail back
the bank-book, a check-book, deposit slips and all
that. They’ll know by the newspapers that
Thornton’s subscribed fifty thousand before they
get the check, and they’ll feel honored to be
your depository. Do it to-night, understand?”

Page 68

“Yes,” said Helena, nodding her head.
“I’ll see to it all right.”
Then, a little perturbed: “But those poor
Holmes and their eight dollars, Doc, I—­”

“Now don’t be greedy, Helena,” said
Madison cheerfully. “You mustn’t
expect everybody to hand out ten and fifty thousand,
just because Thornton and I did—­try and
appreciate the little things of life too.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Helena angrily. “Doc
Madison, I’d like to—­”

“Yes, all right, of course,” interrupted
Madison, grinning. “Good-by, that’s
all—­I’m off—­see, they’re
waiting for me”—­and leaving Helena
with an outraged little flush upon her cheek, he hurried
through the door after the others.

—­XIV—­

KNOTTING THE STRINGS

It is a very old saying, and therefore of course indisputably
true, that some have greatness thrust upon them.
True of men, it is, in one instance at least, true
of places—­Needley, from an unheard of, modest,
innocuous and unassuming little hamlet, leaped in a
flash into the focus of the world’s eyes.
In huge headlines the papers in every city of every
State carried it on their front pages. And while
the first astounding despatch from the metropolitan
newspaper man was being copied by leading dailies
everywhere, there came on top of it, clinching its
veracity beyond possibility of doubt, the news that
Robert Thornton, the well known Chicago multi-millionaire,
had given fifty thousand dollars to the cause.
A man, much less a multi-millionaire, does not give
fifty thousand dollars for a bubble, so the managing
editors of the leading dailies rushed for their star
reporters—­and the star reporters rushed
for Needley—­and the red-haired, sorrowful-faced
man in the Needley station grew haggard, tottered
on the verge of collapse, and, between the sheafs
of flimsy that the reporters fought for the opportunity
of pushing at him, wired desperately for a relief.

Needley awoke and came to life—­as from
the dead. There was bustle, activity, and suppressed
and unsuppressed excitement on every hand—­the
Waldorf Hotel once more opened its doors—­the
Congress Hotel was already full.

The reporters interviewed everybody with but one exception—­the
Patriarch.

They interviewed Madison—­and Madison talked
to them gravely, quietly, a little self-deprecatingly,
a little abashed at the thought of personal exploitage.

“I wouldn’t be interviewed at all,”
he told them, “if it were not that mankind at
large is entitled to every bit of evidence that can
be obtained. Yes; I gave what I could afford,
but it was Holmes, a poor man, who gave most of all—­have
you seen him? Myself? What does that matter?
I am unknown, my personality, unlike Mr. Thornton’s,
can carry no weight. I am, I suppose, what you
might call a rolling stone, a world wanderer.
My parents left me a moderate fortune, and I have travelled
pretty well and pretty constantly all over the world

Page 69

during the last twelve or fifteen years. How
did I come to Needley? Well, you can call it
luck, or something more than that, whichever way it
appeals to you. I was feeling seedy, a little
off-color, and I started down for a rest and lay-off
in Maine. I happened to ask a man in Portland
if he knew of a quiet place. He meant to be humorous,
I imagine. He said Needley was the quietest place
he knew of. I took him at his word.”

“Then,” said Madison, “there can
be but one answer—­faith. There is no
other—­faith. Are we not, in view of
what has happened, of what exists before our very
eyes, forced to the belief that faith is the greatest
thing, the most potential factor in the world?”

“And do you believe then that all who come here
will be cured?”

Madison shook his head.

“Ah, no,” he said; “far from it.
Many will come with but the semblance of faith, and
for those there can be no cure—­that is evident
on the face of it, is it not?”

They interviewed Thornton—­and Thornton,
too, talked to them, but the very presence of Mrs.
Thornton was weightier far than words.

They interviewed the Holmes, and they interviewed
Needley individually and collectively; and they interviewed
Helena—­but they did not interview the Patriarch.
Here Helena barred their way—­they were free
to enter the cottage, to copy the names, the record
of gifts inscribed in the book, already a long list
for Needley had required no other incentive to give
than the example that had been set—­but that
was all. Quietly, with demure simplicity, Helena,
prompted by Madison, like a priestess who guards some
holy, inner shrine, told them that sensational notoriety
had no place there—­and the notoriety for
that very cause became the greater! Not that
they were denied a sight of the Patriarch’s
venerable and saintly form—­they were permitted
to catch glimpses of him on the beach, on the lawn,
walking with bowed head in meditation, a figure whose
simple majesty inspired words and columns of glowing
tribute—­but from personal contact, Helena
and the Flopper, always in attendance, warded them
off; retreating always to the privacy of the cottage,
to the inner rooms.

All this had taken four days; and now, on the fourth
day, there came to Needley the vanguard of those who
sought this new healing power—­just a few
of them, two or three, like far, outflung skirmishers
evidencing the presence of the army corps to follow.
With the reporters, as far as Madison was concerned,
it was simple enough; he had but to let them go their
way, to let them revel in the stories that were on
every tongue, to let them view with their own eyes
facts, while he, modestly and diffidently,

Page 70

full of quiet earnestness, effaced himself, never thrusting
himself forward, talking to them only when they pressed
him—­but the handling of the sufferers who
would flock to Needley in response to a newspaper
publicity and endorsement that had been beyond his
wildest dreams, was quite another matter. Madison
viewed the first arrivals—­brought in from
the station on cot beds to the Waldorf Hotel—­and
retired to his room in the Congress Hotel to wrestle
with the niceties and minutiae of the problem.

“You see,” said Madison to the tip of
his cigar, as he tilted back his chair and extended
his legs full length with his heels comfortably up
on the table edge, “you see, I believe in faith
all right—­and that’s no josh.
But the trouble with faith is that it’s about
the scarcest article on earth—­and I haven’t
got any more Floppers to lead the way.”
Madison adroitly sent the cigar ash through the window
with a tap of his forefinger on the body of the cigar—­he
frowned, and for a long time sat musingly silent.
Then he spoke again; this time addressing the toes
of his boots: “With the house sold out
for the season, the box-office doing itself proud
and the audience crazy over the first two acts, how
about Act Three—­h’m?—­how
about Act Three? Kind of a delicate proposition,
the staging of Act Three—­and it’s
time for the curtain to go up. I can hear ’em
stamping out front now. I can’t pull off
any more orgies like last Monday afternoon, even if
I wanted to—­but everybody’s got to
have a run for their money. Say, how about Act
Three?”

Madison burned up quite a little tobacco in the interval
before supper, and quite a little more afterward before
the setting for his perplexing “Third Act”
appeared to unfold itself satisfactorily before his
mind—­indeed, it was close onto half past
ten when, by a roundabout way, he very cautiously
and silently approached the Patriarch’s cottage.

In the front of the cottage, the Shrine-room, as he
christened it, and the Patriarch’s sleeping
room were both dark. Madison passed around to
the beach side—­here, Helena’s room
was dark too, but in the Flopper’s window, the
end room next to the kitchen and woodshed, there was
a light. The night was warm, and, though the
shade was drawn, the window was open. Madison
whistled softly, and the Flopper stuck out his head.

“Hello, Flopper,” said Madison; “come
out here—­I want to have a talk with you.
Helena in bed?”

“No; she’s out,” replied the Flopper.

“Well, hurry up!” said Madison. “Come
around in front by the trellis where we can see the
other fellow first if anybody happens to be strolling
about.”

Madison withdrew from the window and walked around
to the front of the cottage. Here, a few yards
from the porch, by the trellis, already beginning
to be leafy green, was a rustic bench on which he seated
himself. The moon was not full, but there was
light enough to enable him to see across the lawn
through the interposing row of maples, and, hidden
by the shadows himself, the seat strategetically met
his requirements.

Page 71

“Sure,” said the Flopper. “He
can scrawl if he is blind, can’t he? He
scrawls yer name on de slate. We can’t tell
him nothin’, an’ he’s kinder got
de fidgets like he t’inks youse had flown de
coop.”

“That’s so,” said Madison.
“It is rather difficult to communicate with
him, isn’t it? I guess we’ll have
to get him some raised letters.”

“What’s them?” inquired the Flopper.

“I don’t know exactly,” Madison
answered. “I never saw any, but I believe
they have such things. Been asking for me, has
he? Well, I’ll fix it to see him to-morrow.
Where did you say Helena had gone?”

“I said she was out,” said the Flopper.
“If you ask me where, I’d say de same
place as last night an’ de night before—­down
to dat private car wid his nibs. Say, dere’s
some class to dat guy all right, an’ I guess
Helena ain’t got her eyes shut.”

“Hey!” ejaculated Madison. “What
do you mean?”

“Well, he’s got de rocks, ain’t
he?” declared the Flopper. “Why shouldn’t
she be after him? Dat’s wot we’re
here fer, ain’t it, de whole bunch of us?—­an’
she ain’t t’rowin’ us, is she, if
she sees a chanst to pick up somet’ing on her
own?”

Madison turned quickly on the Flopper.

“You mean,” he said sharply, “that
there’s something going on between Helena and
Thornton—­already?”

“Aw, stop kiddin’!” said the Flopper.
“Already! Wot’s ‘already’
got to do wid it? We ain’t none of us church
members, are we? Say, where’d you pick
up Helena yerself—­and how long did it take
youse? I don’t know whether dere’s
anyt’ing goin’ on or not—­mabbe
she’s only gettin’ lonely—­youse
ain’t hung around her much lately, Doc.”

“It’s a wise guy dat knows skirts,”
said the Flopper profoundly; then, with something
approaching a sigh: “Say, Doc, dere’s
a lalapazoozoo, a peach down here.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Madison, shooting a
hurried and critical glance at the Flopper in the
moonlight. “What’s this, Flopper—­what’s
this? What have you been up to? You’re
supposed to be attending strictly to business.”

“Mamie Rodgers,” said the Flopper.
“She says her old man keeps a store in de village.”

“I know her,” nodded Madison. “Pretty
girl and all right, Flopper. But mind what you’re
doing, that’s all. I don’t want any
complications to queer things around here—­understand?
But let’s get down to the business that I came
out about—­the lay from now on. You
can put Helena wise.”

Page 72

“Sure,” said the Flopper earnestly.

“Well then, listen,” said Madison.
“The patients have begun to arrive—­there
were three of them in to-day. There’s no
more circus parades—­everything’s
under the tent after this. I want you to wean
the Patriarch entirely from that front room—­that’s
to be free for anybody to enter so’s they can
drink in atmosphere—­and see the contribution
box. But they don’t see the Patriarch.
Get his armchair into his own room, make him comfortable
there—­get the idea? Now, there’s
no consultation hours—­the Patriarch can’t
be seen just by asking for him—­the only
chance they get at the Patriarch is by an exercise
of patience that’ll work their faith up to a
pitch that’ll do them some good. The harder
it is to get a thing, the more it’s worth and
the more you want it—­that’s the principle.
See?”

“Sure,” said the Flopper, licking his
lips.

“Sometimes,” Madison went on, “you’re
to keep the Patriarch under cover for two or three
days, while they hang around working themselves into
a frenzy. And when they do see him they have
to scramble for it. You don’t lead him
out to them—­ever. Make them waylay
him when you take him for a walk—­make them
crawl and hop and show they’ve got faith, make
them believe they’ve got faith themselves—­we’ll
get some more cures, or near-cures anyway, that way,
and we won’t get them any other way, and we’ve
got to have some sort of cures coming along fairly
regularly. Do you get me, Flopper? If there’s
a party on a cot a hundred yards away and he begs
you to bring the Patriarch to him, say him nay.
Everybody has got to get into the reserved paddock
by themselves—­tell them that no man can
be cured who has not got the faith to reach the Patriarch
by himself—­tell them to get up and walk
to him—­tell them what you did.”

“Swipe me!” said the Flopper. “Say,
Doc, youse are de one an’ only. I gotcher—­put
it up to dem everytime.”

“Exactly,” said Madison. “It’s
their move every minute—­make them feel
that if they don’t get what they’re after
it’s their own fault—­that it’s
their own lack of faith that’s to blame.
And the longer they have to wait to see the Patriarch,
the more they become impressed that faith is necessary,
and—­oh, well, psychology is the greatest
jollier of them all.”

“Eh?” inquired the Flopper. “I
ain’t on dere, Doc.”

“It’s very simple,” smiled Madison,
“They’ll want to convince themselves that
they have got faith, that it’s all bottled
up and ready to have the cork drawn when called for,
and they’ll prove it to themselves by laying
an offering upon the shrine as evidence of faith before
the goods are delivered.”

“I gotcher!” said the Flopper enthusiastically.
“Why say, Doc, dat’s de way I’d
do meself—­swipe me, if I wouldn’t!”

Page 73

“That’s the way nearly everybody would
do,” said Madison, laughing. “There’s
at least a few similar kinks common to our noble race—­we’re
busy most of the time trying to fool ourselves one
way or another. Well, that’s about all.
I can’t lay out a programme for every minute
of the day—­you and Helena have got to use
your heads and work along that general idea.
You play up your gratitude strong. And, oh yes—­keep
the altar box well baited. Let Helena put some
of her near-diamond rings and joujabs in until we
collect some genuine ones—­and then keep
the genuine ones going—­change every day
for variety, you know. And take the silver money
out every time you see any in—­not that we
scorn it in the great aggregate, far from it—­it’s
just psychology again, Flopper. I went to church
once and sat beside a duck with a white waistcoat and
chop whiskers, who wore the dollar sign sticking out
so thick all over him that you couldn’t see
anything else; and when it came time for collection
he peeled a bill off a roll the size of a house, and
waited for the collection plate to come along.
But he got his eye on the plate a couple of pews ahead
and it was full of coppers and chicken feed, and he
did the palming act with the bill slicker than a faro
dealer—­and whispered to me to change a
quarter for him.”

Across the lawn, coming through the row of maples
from the direction of the wagon track, appeared two
figures.

“Dat’s who,” said the Flopper, after
gazing an instant. “It’s Helena an’
Thornton.”

“So it is,” agreed Madison. “Get
behind the trellis here then—­it wouldn’t
do for him to see me out here at this time of night.”

They rose noiselessly from the bench, and slipped
quickly behind the trellis. Toward them, walking
slowly came the two figures, Helena leaning on Thornton’s
arm. Thornton was talking, but in too low a tone
to be overheard. Then a silence appeared to fall
between the two, and it was not until they reached
the porch, close to Madison and the Flopper, that
either spoke again.

Then Thornton held out his hand.

“Good-night, Miss Vail—­and good-by
temporarily,” he said. “I suppose
I shall be gone four or five days; I’m going
up on the morning train, you know. I wish you’d
go as often as you can to see Naida in the car while
I’m away—­will you? Her condition
worries me, though she insists that she is completely
cured, and she will not listen to any advice.
I have an idea that she has overtaxed herself—­apart
from her hip disease, her heart was in a very critical
state. You’ll go to her, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Helena, “of course,
I will.”

Their voices dropped lower, and for a moment only
a murmur reached Madison; and then, with another “Good-night,
Miss Vail,” Thornton started back across the
lawn.

Page 74

Madison could hear Helena fumbling with the door latch,
and by the time she had succeeded in opening the door
the retreating figure of Thornton was a safe distance
away. Madison called in a whisper:

“Here, Helena! Wait a minute!”

There was a quick, startled little exclamation from
the doorway, and Helena came out hurriedly from the
porch.

“Who’s there?” she cried in a low
voice. “Oh”—­as they stepped
into view—­“you, Doc, and the Flopper!
What were you doing behind that trellis?”

“Business,” replied Helena. “Has
to go to some meeting in Chicago—­he’s
leaving his wife and the private car here. What
did you come at this hour for?”

“Lines for the next act,” said Madison;
“but the Flopper’s got it all, and he’ll
put you on.” He stepped toward Helena and
slipped his arm around her waist. “Come
on, it’s early yet, let’s go for a little
walk. The Flopper’ll excuse us, and I—­”

“I thought you said,” Helena interrupted,
disengaging herself quietly, “that we had to
play the game to the limit and take no chances.”

“Well, so I did,” admitted Madison, and
his arm crept around her again; “but I guess
we’ve earned a little holiday and—­”

“‘Nix on that,’ I think was what
you said,” said Helena with a queer little laugh,
drawing away again. “And I really think
you were right, Doc—­we ought to play the
game without breaking the rules, and so—­good-night”—­and
she turned and ran from him into the cottage.

Madison stared after her in a sort of helpless state
of chagrin.

“Mabbe,” said the Flopper, “mabbe
she’s lonely.”

—­XV—­

A MIRACLE OVERDONE

Helena sat in the Patriarch’s room, and her
piquant little face was pursed up into a scowl so
daintily grim as to be almost ludicrous. The
Patriarch, in his armchair, had been scrawling words
upon the slate all evening—­and she had
been wiping them off! He scrawled another now—­and
mechanically, without looking at it, by way of answer
she pressed his arm to appease him.

She had been restless all day, and she was restless
now. What had induced her to treat Madison the
way she had the night before? Pique, probably.
No; it wasn’t pique. It was just getting
back at him—­and he deserved it. He
hadn’t seemed to mind it much, though—­he
had only laughed and teased her about it that morning
when he had joined the Patriarch and herself in their
walk along the beach.

With her chin in her hands, she began to study the
Patriarch through half closed eyes—­deaf
and dumb and blind—­and somehow it all seemed
excruciatingly funny and she wanted to laugh hysterically.
He seemed to sense the fact that she was looking at
him, and, with quick, instant intuition, he smiled
and reached out his hand toward her.

Page 75

Unconsciously, involuntarily, she drew back—­then,
recovering herself the next instant, she took his
hand. Now, why had she done that? What was
the matter with her? Again she felt that sudden
impulse to scream, or laugh, or shout, or make some
noise—­it seemed as though she were penned
in, smothered somehow, imprisoned. What was
the matter? Nerves? She had never known
what nerves were in all her life! Couldn’t
she play the game and act her part without making
a fool of herself? She had played a part all
her life, hadn’t she? Maybe it was quite
a shock to her system to take a place amongst really
good and simple folk!

She laughed a little shortly—­then rose
abruptly from her chair, and began to walk up and
down the room. The trouble was that the soft pedal
was getting unbearable. That air of awed hush
and solemnity, morning, noon and night, without anything
to relieve it, was just a trifle too drastic and sudden
a change in life for her to accept calmly and swallow
in one dose without feeling any effects from it!
If she could be transported now for an hour, say,
to the Roost, or Heligman’s and the turkey trot,
or the Rivoli, or any old place—­except Needley,
Maine!

“Gee!” said Helena to herself. “If
I don’t break loose and kick the traces over
for a minute or two, I’ll be clawing the bars
of a dippy asylum before I’m through—­and
just listen to the sweet, girlish language I’m
using—­I’d like to bite something!”

She turned impulsively to the door, stepped out into
the hall, and called the Flopper from his room.

“Flopper, you go in there and stay with the
Patriarch for awhile,” she ordered curtly.
“I’m going down on the beach to yell.”

“Swipe me!” observed the Flopper, gazing
at her anxiously. “Skirts is all de same—­youse
never know wot dey’ll do next. Wot you wanter
yell fer?”

“You mind your own business and do as you’re
told!” said Helena tartly. “Go in
there and stay with the Patriarch.”

“Sure,” said the Flopper, grinning a little
now. “Sure t’ing—­but youse
needn’t get on yer ear about it. Cheer up,
mabbe de Doc’ll be out to-night, an’ if
he don’t hear youse yellin’ himself will
I tell him youse are out on de beach t’rowin’
a fit?”

“No,” Helena answered sharply; “tell
him nothing—­I’m out.” Then,
quite as quickly, changing her mind: “Yes;
tell him I’m down there—­or come and
get me yourself”—­and she walked abruptly
into her own room.

“Now wot do youse t’ink of dat?”
demanded the Flopper of the universe. He blinked
at the door she had closed in his face. “Say,”
he asserted, with sublime inconsistency, “if
Mamie Rodgers was like all de rest of dem, I’d
t’row up me dukes before de gong rang.”
The Flopper went into the Patriarch’s room,
and took the chair beside the other that Helena had
vacated. “Swipe me, if I wouldn’t!”
he added fervently, by way of confirmation.

Page 76

Helena, in her own room, opened one of her trunks,
lifted out the tray, worked somewhat impatiently down
through several layers of yellow, paper-covered literature,
that would have made the classics on the Patriarch’s
bookshelves shrivel up and draw their skirts hurriedly
around them in righteous horror could they but have
known or been capable of such intensely human characteristics,
and finally produced a daintily jewelled little cigarette
case and match box. She slammed the tray back,
slammed the cover of the trunk down, snatched up a
wrap, flung it over her head and shoulders—­and
left the cottage.

She ran down to the beach at top speed, as if she
couldn’t get there fast enough.

“And now I’m just going to yell and go
crazy as much as ever I like!” panted Helena
to the rollers.

Instead, she sat down with her back to a rock, and
opened her cigarette case. She took out a cigarette,
extracted a match from the match box, lighted the
match—­and flung both cigarette and match
from her.

“I don’t want to be crazy—­I
don’t know what I want,” said Helena petulantly.
Her chin went into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed
at the breaking surf. “I wonder what it
all means?” she murmured, with a mirthless little
laugh.

Her thoughts began to run riot. What did
it all mean? What was this faith? There
was, there must be something in it. There
was the Holmes boy—­suppose it was
only some nervous disorder—­well, something
had risen superior to whatever it was and had cured
him. There was Naida Thornton—­true,
she was ill again—­her heart, Mr. Thornton
had said—­but she could still walk, a thing
she had not been able to do for a long time until
she came to Needley.

Helena laughed again—­oh, it was a good
game! The Doc had made no mistake about that—­but
then, when it came to planting anything the Doc rarely
did make a mistake. Fancy fifty thousand dollars
in one haul! Fifty thousand in one haul! The
bank had sent her a passbook with that amount to her
credit. And that was only the beginning—­hardly
anybody had come yet, and already there was several
hundred dollars more in real money that she had handed
over to Madison from the offering box.

Money! They’d have more money than they’d
know what to do with before they got through—­there
was nothing the matter with the game—­all
there was to do was to play it to a finish. And
there wasn’t the slightest risk about it—­everything
was given voluntarily. Oh, the game was all right—­but
somehow she wasn’t happy—­not nearly
so happy as she had been in New York, even in lean
periods when she and the Doc had been pressed for
money. But, anyway, then they had been together,
and fought, and laughed, and loved, and quarrelled
through flush times and bad.

Page 77

Maybe that was it! The Doc! Of course, she
loved him—­she had loved him ever since
she had known him. There was no secret about that—­she
loved him fiercely, passionately, more than she loved
anything else in the world, with all the love she
was capable of—­more than he loved her—­he
seemed to accept her, too often, so casually, so indifferently,
so much as a matter of course. He was so confidently
and complacently sure of her—­and she was
not at all sure of him. She was only sure that
he was quite right in being sure—­she couldn’t
help loving him if she tried.

She had hardly seen anything of him since that night
in the Roost before he had left for Needley—­and
he hadn’t seemed to care much whether she did
or not. That talk about playing the game and taking
no chances was all bosh—­there had been
plenty of chances where it wouldn’t have hurt
the game any. Perhaps the little jolt she had
given him last night, turning the tables a little,
would wake him up a bit. Perhaps, as the Flopper
had said, he would come out to-night, and—­

“Helena! Helena!”

Helena sat suddenly upright—­the noise of
the surf muffled the sound of the voice, but that
was probably Doc now—­she could hear footsteps
running from the direction of the cottage. Deliberately,
Helena leaned back again against the rock, took out
a cigarette and with no attempt to shade the flame
of the match, rather to use it as a challenging beacon,
held it to the cigarette—­but for the second
time she flung both match and cigarette hurriedly
away. It wasn’t Madison at all—­it
was only the Flopper.

“What?” cried Helena sharply, jumping
to her feet. “After me? Who? What
do you mean?”

“I dunno,” said the Flopper with sudden
imperturbability—­and evidently quite pleased
with the agitation he had caused. “He talks
like his mouth was full, an’ he’s got
a scare t’rown inter him so’s his teeth
have got de jiggles.”

Helena caught the Flopper’s arm and shook him
angrily.

“What are you talking about—­what
is it?” she demanded fiercely.

“It’s de porter from de private car,”
said the Flopper, wriggling away from her. “He
drove out here. De lady’s on de toboggan—­sick.
She’s askin’ fer youse an’—­”

Helena waited for no more. She raced to the cottage
and around to the front. A wagon was standing
before the porch; the negro porter on the seat.

“What is it, Sam?” she called anxiously,
as she came up. “Is Mrs. Thornton seriously
ill?”

Page 78

“Then drive,” she said shortly. “Drive
as fast as you can.”

At first, as they drove along, Helena plied Sam with
questions—­and then lapsed into silence.
The man did not know very much—­only that
Mrs. Thornton had been taken suddenly ill, and that
the nurse had sent him on the errand that had brought
him to the cottage. A turmoil of conflicting
emotions filled Helena’s mind, obtruding upon
her anxiety, for she had grown to care a great deal
for Naida Thornton—­this was a complication
that Doc Madison must know about—­Thornton
had left that morning and was already far away—­the
newspaper men, or some of them at least, were still
in the town—­and there were so many things
else—­they all came crowding upon her, as
she clung to her seat in the jolting wagon. But
Doc must know—­that rose a paramount consideration.
It seemed an age, an eternity before they stopped
finally at the station.

She sprang out and turned to Sam.

“Sam,” she directed hurriedly, “you
go back to the Congress Hotel and get Mr. Madison.
Mr. Madison is a friend of Mr. Thornton’s, you
know. Go about it quietly—­you needn’t
let any one know what you came for. You can tell
Mr. Madison what the trouble is—­and tell
him that I sent you, and that I am here. Do you
understand?”

“Yas’um, mum,” said Sam impressively.
“Just you done leab all that to me, missy.”

Across the track on the siding, the private car was
dimly lighted, the window curtains down. Helena
crossed the track and mounted the steps. As she
reached the platform, Miss Harvey, who had evidently
heard her coming, opened the door and drew her quietly
inside.

A glance at the nurse’s face brought a sudden
chill to Helena’s heart. Miss Harvey, capable,
controlled, grave, smiled at her a little sadly.

“I sent for you, Miss Vail,” she said
in a low tone, “because Mrs. Thornton has been
asking for you incessantly ever since the attack came
on three-quarters of an hour ago.”

“You mean,” said Helena, “that—­that
there is—­”

“No hope,” the nurse completed. “I
am afraid there is none—­it is her heart.
The condition has been aggravated by her activity during
the last few days since she has been able to walk—­though
I have done everything within my power to keep her
quiet.” Miss Harvey laid her hand on Helena’s
arm. “There is one thing, Miss Vail, I feel
that I must say to you, in justice both to you and
to myself, before you see her. Whatever my personal
ideas may be of what has taken place here, my professional
duty as a nurse demanded that I send for a doctor at
once, and I want you to know that is what I did, though
I have not been successful in getting one. There
is no doctor here, so I telegraphed; but the doctor
at Barton’s Mills is away.”

“Yes,” said Helena mechanically.

“I just wanted you to understand,” said
Miss Harvey. “Will you come and see Mrs.
Thornton now?”

“Does she know,” whispered Helena, as
she followed the nurse down the corridor of the car,
“does she know that—­how ill she is?”

Page 79

A little cry rose to Helena’s lips that she
choked back somehow, and a mist for a moment blinded
her eyes—­then she was kneeling beside the
brass bed, and was holding in both her own the hand
that was stretched out to her.

“Helena—­dear—­I am so glad
you came,” said Mrs. Thornton faintly. “I—­I
am not going to get better, and there are some things
I want to say to you.”

“Dear,” she said, “I know.
And I know that what I have to say I must say quickly.”
Her voice seemed to grow suddenly stronger with a great
earnestness. “Listen, dear. This must
not make any difference to this wonderful work that
has just begun here. I was cured of my hip disease—­perfectly
cured—­no one can deny that—­this
is my own fault, I have overdone it—­I would
not listen to reason—­to do what I have done
in the last few days, when for a year and a half I
had never moved a step, was more than my heart could
stand. I should have been more quiet—­but
I was so glad, so happy—­and I wanted to
tell everybody—­I wanted all the world to
know, so that others could find the joy that I had
found.”

She paused—­and Helena sought for words
that, somehow, would not come.

The nurse was bending over the bed on the other side,
and Mrs. Thornton turned her head toward Miss Harvey
now. She smiled gently, as though to rob her
words of any possible hurt.

“Nurse, I want—­to be alone with Miss
Vail for just a moment.”

Miss Harvey, doubtful, hesitated.

“Only for a moment,” pleaded Mrs. Thornton.
“You can stay just outside the door.”

Reluctantly, Miss Harvey complied, and left the room.

Mrs. Thornton pressed Helena’s hand tightly.

“Listen, dear—­this must not make
any difference. It—­it is the one thing
that will make me happy now—­to know that.
I—­I have written a little note to Robert
about it, to be given to him. Oh, if I could only
have lived to help—­I should have tried so
hard to be worthy to have a part in it. Not like
you, dear, with your sweetness and nobleness, for
God seems to have singled you out for this—­but
just to have had a little part. How wonderful
it would have been, bringing peace and health and
gladness where only sorrow and misery was before, and—­and—­”

Mrs. Thornton’s eyes closed, and she lay for
a moment quiet.

A blackness seemed to settle upon Helena—­and
how cold it was! She shivered. Her dark
eyes, wide, tearless now, stared, startled, dazed,
at the white face on the pillow crowned with its mass
of golden hair. Her sweetness! Her nobleness!
Helena’s lips half parted and her breath came
in quick, fierce, little gasps—­it seemed
as though she had been struck a blow that she could
not quite understand because somehow it had numbed
her senses—­only there was a hurt that curiously,
strangely seemed to mock as it stabbed with pain.

Page 80

“There is Robert”—­Mrs. Thornton
spoke again—­“I am sure he will do
as I have asked him to do about this, but—­you
can have a great deal of influence with him.
It—­it perhaps may seem a strange thing to
say, but I pray that you two may be brought very close
to each other. Robert needs a good, true woman
so much in his life—­and I—­we—­we—­my
illness—­we have never had a home in its
truest sense. Yes, it is strange for me perhaps
to talk like this—­but it is in my heart.
I would like to think of you both engaged in this
wonderful work together.”

Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton stopped—­and
Helena, from gazing at the other’s pallid countenance
in a sort of involuntary, frightened fascination,
dropped her head suddenly upon the bed-spread and
hid her face.

Mrs. Thornton’s hand found Helena’s head
and rested upon it.

“I would like to see Robert happy,” she
murmured, after a little silence. “Riches
do not make happiness—­they are so sad and
empty a thing when the heart is empty. I know
he would be happy with you—­he has spoken
so much of you lately—­perhaps—­perhaps—­”

Mrs. Thornton’s voice was very faint—­the
words reached Helena plainly enough as words, but
they seemed to reach her consciousness in an unreal,
unnatural, blunted way, coma-like—­pregnant
of significance, yet with the significance itself
elusive, evading her.

“A good woman,” whispered Mrs. Thornton,
“I have tried to be a good woman—­but—­but
my life, our wealth, our position has made it so artificial.
You have never known these things, dear—­and
so you are just as God made you—­good woman,
so pure, so wonderful in your freshness and your innocence.
Robert’s life has been so barren—­so
barren. I would like to know that—­that
it will not always be so. Oh, if it could only
be that you and he should carry on this great, glad
work together—­and love should come into
his life—­and yours—­and sunshine—­promise
me, dear, that—­”

The voice died away. Helena, with head still
buried, waited for Mrs. Thornton to speak again.
It seemed she waited for a great length of time—­and
yet there was no such thing as time. It seemed
as though she were transported to a place of great
and intense blackness where it was miserably cold
and chill, and she stood alone and lost, and strove
to find her way—­and there was no way—­only
blackness everywhere, immeasurable. She lifted
her head suddenly, desperately, to shake the unreality
from her—­and her eyes fell upon the gentle
face, peaceful, smiling, calm, and so still—­and
a startled, frightened cry rang from her lips.

There was the quick, hurried rush of some one coming
into the room, and the nurse brushed by her and bent
instantly over the bed—­after that, quite
soon after that it seemed, and yet it might have been
quite a little while, she found herself outside in
the corridor and the nurse was speaking to her.

“Sam is still out there,” said Miss Harvey
gently. “I told him to keep the team.
You cannot help me, and I want you to go home, dear.
And will you ask Sam to go for Mr. Madison at the
hotel on the way back—­I do not know who
else I can call upon for advice.”

Page 81

“I’ve sent for him already,” said
Helena numbly.

“Have you, dear?” Miss Harvey said.
“That was very thoughtful of you—­I’m
sure he’ll be here presently then. And now,
dear, it is much better that you should go.”

There were no tears in Helena’s eyes as she
stepped down from the car vestibule to the tracks—­only
a drawn misery in her face. That was Doc over
there, pacing up and down on the platform in the darkness—­wasn’t
it weird the way his cigar glowed bright and then went
out and then glowed bright again—­like a
gigantic firefly!

She was across the tracks before he saw her, then,
hurrying forward, he helped her to the platform.

“Well?” he asked quickly.

Helena did not answer.

Madison took the cigar from his lips, leaned forward,
and peered into Helena’s face—­then
drew back with a low whistle.

“Dead?” he said.

Helena nodded.

“Miss Harvey wants to see you,” she said.

“Say,” said Madison slowly, “first
crack out of the box this looks bad, don’t it?
If this gets around here without a muffler on it, it
might make the railroad companies hang fire with those
circulars for excursion rates to Needley—­what?”

“Now, look here, Helena,” said he quietly,
“don’t get excited. Of course I’m
sorry—­I’m not a brute and I’ve
got feelings—­but I can’t afford to
lose my head. Something’s got to be done,
and done quick. We don’t want this headlined
in every paper in the United States to-morrow morning—­Thornton
wouldn’t want it either. You say Miss Harvey
wants to see me? Well, that’ll help some—­she’ll
probably do as she’s told, and—­”

Madison paused abruptly, gazed abstractedly at the
private car across the tracks on the siding, and pulled
at his cigar.

Helena watched him in silence—­a little
bitterly. That quick, clever, cunning brain of
his was at work again—­scheming—­scheming—­always
scheming—­and Naida Thornton was dead.

“I’ll tell you,” said Madison, speaking
again as abruptly as he had stopped. “It’s
simple enough. There’s a westbound train
due in an hour or so—­we’ll couple
the private car onto that and send it right along to
Chicago. What the authorities don’t know
won’t hurt them. There’s no reason
for anybody except Thornton to know what’s happened
till she gets there—­I’ll wire him.
The main thing is that the car won’t be here
in the morning, and that’ll take a little of
the intimate touch of Needley off. It might well
have happened on her way home—­journey too
much for her—­left too soon—­see?
Thornton’ll see it in the right light because
he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of faith
in what’s going on here—­get that?
He won’t want to harm the ‘cause.’
There’ll be some publicity of course, we can’t
help that—­but it won’t hurt much—­and
Thornton can gag a whole lot of it—­he’d
want to anyway for his own sake. Now then, kid,
there’s Sam over there—­you pile into
the wagon and go home, while I get busy—­and
don’t you say a word about this, even to the
Flopper.”

Page 82

And so Helena drove back to the Patriarch’s
cottage that night, a little silent figure in the
back seat of the wagon—­and her hands were
locked tightly together in her lap—­and
to her, as she drove over the peaceful, moonlit road,
and under the still, arched branches of the trees in
the wood that hid the starlight, came again and again
the words of one who had gone, who perhaps knew better
now—­“you are as God made you.”

—­XVI—­

A FLY IN THE OINTMENT

The days passed. And with the days, morning,
noon and night, they came by almost every train, the
sick and suffering, the lame, the paralytics and the
maimed—­a steady influx by twos and threes
and fours—­from north over the Canadian
boundary line, from the far west, and from the southernmost
tip of the Florida coast. No longer on the company’s
schedule was Needley a flag station—­it was
a regular stop, and its passenger traffic returns
were benign and pleasing things in the auditor’s
office. And it was an accustomed sight now, many
times a day—­what had once been a strange,
rare spectacle—­that slow procession wending
its way from the station to the town, some carried,
some limping upon crutches, all snatching at hope
of life and health and happiness again. Needley,
perforce, had become a vast boarding house, as it
were—­there were few homes indeed that did
not harbor their quota of those who sought the “cure.”

But there were others too who came—­who
were not sick—­who had not faith—­who
came to laugh and peer and peek. Pleasure yachts
dropped their anchors in the cove around the headland
from the Patriarch’s cottage—­and
their dingeys brought women decked out de rigeur
in middy blouses and sailor collars, and nattily attired
gentlemen whose only claim to seamanship was the clothes,
or rather, the costumes that they wore.

They came laughing, supercilious, tolerant, contemptuous,
pitying the inanity of those they held less strongly-minded
than themselves who should be taken in by so apparent,
glaring and monstrous a fake. They came because
it was the rage, the thing to do, quite the thing to
do, quite a necessary part of the summer’s itinerary.
But that they, should they have been sick, would ever
have dreamed of coming there was too perfectly ridiculous
an idea for words. How strange a thing is the
human animal!

They came in their rather cruel, merciless gaiety—­and
they left sobered and impressed; the ladies holding
their embroidered parasols at a less jaunty angle;
the men with lightened pockets, their names enrolled
in the contribution book in that quiet, simple room,
whose door was open, whose cash-box was unguarded,
where none asked them to either enter or withdraw.
They came and found no air of charlatanism such as
they had looked for—­only a peaceful, unostentatious,
patient air of sincerity that left them remorseful
and abashed. They came and went, a source of
revenue not counted on or thought of before by Madison;
but a source that swelled the coffers, brimming fuller
day by day, to overflowing.

Page 83

In three weeks from the night of Mrs. Thornton’s
death, which had had at least no visible effect on
Needley, Needley was metamorphosed—­with
a spontaneity, so to speak, that astounded even Madison
himself—­into something that approximated
very closely in reality the word-picture he had drawn
of it that night in the Roost. Madison looked
upon his work and saw that it was pleasing beyond
his dreams. Money was pouring in—­no
single breath of suspicion came to disquiet him.
Even the cures were working satisfactorily—­even
Pale Face Harry, who had become great friends with
the farmer at whose house he boarded, and who now spent
most of his time in the fields, was showing an improvement—­Pale
Face Harry coughed less. The Flopper was as happy
as a lark—­and Mamie Rodgers blushed now
at mention of the name of Coogan. Helena, demure,
adored by all who saw her, went daily about her housework
in the cottage, and waited upon the Patriarch with
gentle tenderness; while the Patriarch, docile, full
of supreme trust and confidence in every one, radiant
in Helena’s companionship, was as putty in their
hands. And so Madison looked upon his work and
saw no flaw—­but with the days he grew ill
at ease.

And yet in his heart he knew that wasn’t it—­it
was Helena. Helena was beginning to trouble him
a little. She was playing the game all right—­playing
it to the limit—­and making a hit at every
performance. Her name was on every tongue, and
men and women alike spoke of her sweetness, her goodness,
her loveliness. Well, that was all right, Helena
was a star no matter where you put her—­but
something was the matter. Helena wasn’t
the Helena of a month ago back in little old New York.
He hadn’t managed to get a dozen words with her
since that night on the station platform, without
taking chances and gaining admission to the cottage
through the Flopper’s window after dark—­and
then she had held him at arm’s length.

“The matter with me?” she had said.
“There isn’t anything the matter with
me—­is there? I’m—­I’m
playing the game.”

It certainly couldn’t be grief over Mrs. Thornton’s
death—­she had begun to act that way before
Mrs. Thornton died—­that night when she came
home with Thornton, and he and the Flopper were behind
the trellis. Thornton! Had Thornton anything
to do with it, after all? No—­Madison
had laughed at it then, and he had much more reason
to laugh at it now. Thornton was still in Chicago,
and hadn’t been back to Needley.

For three weeks this sort of thing occupied a considerably
larger share of Madison’s thoughts than he was
wont to allow even the most vexing problems to disturb
his usually imperturbable and complacent self—­and
then one afternoon, he smiled a little grimly, and,
leaving the hotel, started along the road toward the
Patriarch’s cottage.

Page 84

“What Helena needs is—­a jolt!”
said Madison to himself. “I guess her trouble
is one of those everlasting feminine kinks that all
women since Adam’s wife have patted themselves
on the back over, because they think it’s a
dark veil of mystery that is beyond the acumen of brute
man to understand. That’s what the novelists
write pages about—­wade right in up to the
armpits in it—­feminine psychology—­great!
And the women smile commiseratingly at the novelist—­the
idea of a man even pretending to understand them—­kind
of a blooming merry-go-round and everybody happy!
Feminine psychology! I guess a little masculine
kick-up is about the right dope! What the deuce
have I been standing for it for? I don’t
have to—­I don’t have to go around
making sheep’s-eyes at her—­what?
She wants grabbing up and being rushed right off her
feet a la Roost, and—­hello, Mr.
Marvin, how are you to-day!”—­he had
halted beside a middle-aged man who was sitting on
the grass at the roadside.

“Better, Mr. Madison, better,” returned
the man, heartily. “Really very much better.”

“Fine!” said Madison.

“We all saw the Patriarch to-day—­God
bless him!” said Marvin. “We’ve
been waiting out there two days, you know—­that
woman with the bad back got up off her stretcher.”

“Splendid!” exclaimed Madison enthusiastically.
“And the glorious thing about it is that there’s
no reason why everybody can’t be cured if they’ll
only come here in the right spirit.”

“That’s so!” agreed Marvin.
“None are so blind as those who won’t
see—­they’re in utter blackness compared
with the physical blindness of that grand and marvelous
man. I’m going home myself in another week—­better
than ever I was in my life. It was stomach with
me, you know—­doctors said there wasn’t
any chance except to operate, and that an operation
was too slim a chance to be worth risking it.”
He got up and laughed, carefree, joyous. “God-given
place down here, isn’t it? Clean—­that’s
it. Clean air, clean-souled people, clean everything
you see or do or hear. Say, it kind of opens
your eyes to real living, doesn’t it—­it’s
the luxuries and the worries and the pace and the
damn-fooleries that kill. Well, I’m going
along back now to get some of Mrs. Perkins’
cream—­clean, rich cream—­and homemade
bread and butter—­imagine me with an appetite
and able to eat!”

He laughed again—­and Madison joined him
in the laugh, slapping him a cordial good-by on the
shoulder.

Madison started on once more—­but now his
progress was slow, frequently interrupted, for he
stopped a score of times to chat and exchange a few
words with those whom he passed on the road. There
were cheery faces everywhere—­even those
of the sufferers who straggled out along the road
coming back from the Patriarch’s cottage.
It was a cheery afternoon, warm and balmy and bright—­everything
was cheery. The farmers, their vocations for
the moment changed, waved their whips at him and shouted
friendly pleasantries as they drove by with those who
were unable to make the trip from the Patriarch’s
unaided.

Page 85

Madison began to experience a strange, exhilarating
sense of uplift upon him, a sort of rather commendatory
and gratified feeling with himself. Marvin had
hit it pretty nearly right with his “clean-wholesomeness”
idea—­it kind of made one feel good to be
a part of it. Madison, for the time being, relegated
Helena and his immediate mission to a secondary place
in his thoughts.

Young girls, young men, middle-aged men, elderly women,
all ages of both sexes he passed as he went along;
some alone, some in couples, some in little groups,
some on crutches, some in wheel-chairs, some walking
without extraneous aid—­he had turned into
the woods now, and he could see them strewn out all
along the wagon track under the cool, interlacing
branches overhead.

Now he stepped aside to let a wagon pass him, and
answered the farmer’s call and the smile of
the occupants in kind; now some one stopped to tell
him again the story of the afternoon—­there
had been cures that day and the Patriarch had come
amongst them. Some laughed, some sang a little,
softly, to themselves—­all smiled—­all
spoke in glad, hopeful words, clean words—­there
seemed no base thought in any mind, only that cleanness,
that wholesomeness that had so appealed to Marvin—­that
somehow Madison found he was taking a delight in responding
to, and, because it afforded him whimsical pleasure,
chose to pretend that he was quite a genuine exponent
of it himself.

He reached the end of the wagon track, and paused
involuntarily on the edge of the Patriarch’s
lawn as he came out from the trees. Like low,
lulling music came the distant, mellowed noise of waters,
the breaking surf. And the cottage was a bower
of green now, clothed in ivy and vine—­upon
the trellises the early roses were budding—­fragrance
of growing things blended with the salt, invigorating
breeze from the ocean. And upon the lawn, flanked
with its sturdy maples, all in leaf, that toned the
sunshine in soft-falling shadows, stood, or sat, or
reclined on cots, the supplicants who still tarried
though the Patriarch had gone. And now one came
reverently out of the cottage door from that room
that was never closed; now another went in—­and
still another.

Madison smiled suddenly, broadly, with immense satisfaction
and contentment—­and then his eyes fixed
quite as suddenly on the single-seated buggy that
was coming toward him on the driveway across the lawn.
That was Mamie Rodgers driving—­and that
was Helena beside her.

Madison recalled instantly the object of his visit—­and
instantly he whistled a rather surprised little whistle
under his breath. How alluringly Helena’s
brown hair coiled in wavy wealth upon her head; there
wasn’t any need of rouge for color in the oval
face; the dark eyes were soft and deep and glorious;
and she sat there in a little white muslin frock as
dainty as a medallion from a master’s brush.

“Say,” said Madison to himself, “say,
I never quite got it before. Say, she’s—­she’s
lovely—­and that’s my Helena.
It’s no wonder Thornton stared at her that day
we touched him for the fifty, and”—­suddenly—­“damn
Thornton!”

Page 86

But the buggy was beside him now, and he lifted his
hat as Mamie Rodgers pulled up the horse.

“He is very well, thank you,” Helena answered—­and
being custodian of the whip brushed a fly off the
horse’s flank.

“I was just coming out to pay you a little visit,”
remarked Madison, trying to catch her eye.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” said
Helena sweetly, still busy with the fly. “Mamie
is going to take me for a drive—­and afterwards
we are going to her house for tea.”

“Oh!” said Madison, a little blankly.

Helena smiled at him, nodded, and touched the horse
with the whip—­and then she leaned suddenly
out toward him, as the buggy started forward.

“Oh, Mr. Madison,” she called, “I
forgot to tell you! I had a letter from Mr. Thornton
to-day—­and he’s coming back to-morrow.”

—­XVII—­

IN WHICH HELENA TAKES A RIDE

The wind kissed Helena’s face, bringing dainty
color to her cheeks, tossing truant wisps of hair
this way and that, as the car swept onward. But
she sat strangely silent now beside Thornton at the
steering wheel.

It seemed to her that she was living, not her own
life, not life as she had known and looked upon it
in the years before, but living, as it were, in a
strange, suspended state that was neither real nor
unreal, as in a dream that led her, now through cool,
deep forests, beside clear, sparkling streams where
all was a great peace and the soul was at rest, serene,
untroubled, now into desolate places where misery had
its birth and shame was, where there was fear, and
the mind stood staggered and appalled and lost and
knew not how to guide her that she might flee from
it all.

At moments most unexpected, as now when motoring with
Thornton in the car that he had brought back with
him on, his return to Needley, when laughing at the
Flopper’s determined pursuit of Mamie Rodgers,
when engaged in the homely, practical details of housekeeping
about the cottage, there came flashing suddenly upon
her the picture of Mrs. Thornton lying on the brass
bed in the car compartment that night, every line
of the pale, gentle face as vivid, as actual as though
it were once more before her in reality, and in her
ears rang again, stabbing her with their unmeant condemnation,
those words of sweetness, love and purity that held
her up to gaze upon herself in ghastly, terrifying
mockery.

It stupified her, bewildered her, frightened her.
She seemed, for days and weeks now, to be drifting
with a current that, eddying, swirling, swept her
this way and that. How wonderful it was, this
life she was now leading compared with the old life—­so
full of the better things, the better emotions, the
better thoughts that she had never known before!
How monstrous in its irony that she was leading it

Page 87

to steal, that she might play her part in a
criminal scheme for a criminal end! And yet,
somehow, it did not all seem sham, this part she played—­and
that very thought, too, frightened her. Why was
it now that Madison’s oft-attempted, and as
oft-repulsed, kiss upon her lips was something from
which she shrank and battled back, no longer from a
sense of pique or to bring him to his knees, but because
something new within her, intangible, that she did
not understand, rose up against it! Why did she
do this—­she, who had known the depths, who
had known no other guide or mentor than the turbulent,
passionate love she had yielded him and in her abandonment
had once found contentment! Was her love for him
gone? Or, if it was not that—­what
was it?

What was it? A week, another, two more, a month
had slipped away since Thornton had returned, and
there had been so much of genuineness crowded into
this sham part of hers that it seemed at times the
part itself was genuine. She had come to love
that little room of hers, love it for its dear simplicity,
the white muslin curtains, the rag mat, the patch-quilt
on the bed; those daily duties of a woman, that she
had never done before, that she had at first looked
at askance, brought now a sense of keen, housewifely
pride; the gentle patience of the Patriarch, his love
for her, his simple trust in her had found a quick
and instant response in her own heart, and daily her
affection for him had grown; and there was Thornton—­this
man beside her, whose companionship somehow she seemed
to crave for, who, in his grave, quiet manliness, seemed
a sort of inspiration to her, who seemed in a curious
way to appease a new hunger that had come to her for
association, for contact with better thoughts and
better ideals.

What was it? Environment? Yes; there must
be something in that. It was having its effect
even on Pale Face Harry and the Flopper. What
was it that Harry, a surprisingly lusty farmhand now,
had said to her a week or so ago: “Say,
Helena, do you ever feel that while you was trying
to kid the crowd about this living on the square,
you was kind of getting kidded yourself? I dunno!
I ain’t coughed for a month—­honest.
But it ain’t only that. Say—­I
dunno! Do you ever feel that way?”

Yes; there must be something in environment.
The old life had never brought her thoughts such as
these, thoughts that had been with her now almost
since the first day she had come to Needley—­this
disquiet, this self-questioning, these sudden floods
of condemnatory confusion; and, mingling with them,
a startled thrill, a strange, half-glad, half-premonitory
awakening, a vague pronouncement that innately it might
be true that she was not what she really was—­but
what all those around her held her to be—­what
Mrs. Thornton had said she was—­and—­

Her fingers closed with a quick, fierce pressure on
the arm-rest of her seat—­and she shifted
her position with a sudden, involuntary movement.

Page 88

Thornton, a road-map tacked on a piece of board and
propped up at his feet, raised his head, and, self-occupied
himself, had apparently not noticed her silence, for
he spoke irrelevantly.

“I hope you won’t mind if the road is
a bit rougher than usual for a few miles,” he
said; “but you know we decided we didn’t
like the looks of the weather at tea-time, and according
to the map, which labels it ‘rough but passable,’
this is a short cut that will lop off about ten miles
and take us back to Needley through Barton’s
Mills.”

“Of course, I don’t mind,” Helena
answered. “How far are we from Needley?”

“About thirty-five miles or so,” Thornton
replied. “Say, an hour and a half with
any kind of going at all. We ought to be back
by nine.”

Helena nodded brightly and leaned back in her seat.
Rather than objecting to the short cut that Thornton
had begun to negotiate, the road, now that she gave
her attention to it, she found to be quite the prettiest
bit she had seen in the whole afternoon’s run,
where, in the rough, sparsely settled north country,
all was both pretty and a delight—­miles
and miles without the sign of even a farmhouse, just
the great Maine forests, so majestic and grand in
their solitude, bordering the road that undulated
with the country, now to a rise with its magnificent
sweep of scenery, now to the cool, fresh valleys full
of the sweet pine-scent of the woods. They had
explored much of it together in the little ‘run-about,’
nearly every day a short spin somewhere; to-day a
little more ambitious run—­the whole afternoon,
and tea, a picnic tea, an hour or more back, in a
charming glade beside a little brook.

“Oh, this is perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed;
and then, with a breathless laugh, as a bump lifted
her out of her seat: “It is rough—­isn’t
it?”

Thornton laughed and slowed down.

“I don’t fancy it’s used much, except
in the winter for logging. But if the map says
we can get through, I guess we’re all right—­there’s
about an eight mile stretch of it.”

It was growing dusk, and the shadows, fanciful and
picturesque; were deepening around them. Now
it showed a solid mass of green ahead, and, like a
sylvan path, the road, converging in the distance,
lost itself in a wall of foliage; now it swerved rapidly,
this way and that, in short curves, as though, like
one lost, it sought its way.

A half hour passed. Thornton stopped the car,
got down and lighted his lamps, then started on again.
The going had seemed to be growing steadily worse—­the
road, as Thornton had said, was little more indeed
than a logging trail through the heart of the woods;
and now, deeper in, with increasing frequency, the
tires slipped and skidded on damp, moist earth that
at times approached very nearly to being oozy mud.

Silence for a long while had held between them.
It was taking Thornton all his time now to guide the
car, that, negotiating fallen branches strewn across
the way, bad holes and ruts, was crawling at a snail’s
pace.

Page 89

“’Rough but passable’!” he
laughed once, clambering back to his seat after clearing
away a dead tree-trunk from in front of them.
“But there’s no use trying to go back,
as we must be halfway through, and it can’t
be any worse ahead than it’s been behind.
I’d like to tell the fellow that made this map
something!”

And then upon Helena, just why she could not tell,
began to steal an uneasiness that frightened her a
little. It had grown suddenly, intensely dark—­quicker
than the slow, creeping change of dusk blending softly
into night. Sort of eerie, it seemed—­and
a wind springing up and rustling through the branches
made strange noises all about. They seemed to
be shut in by a wall of blackness on every hand, except
ahead where, like great streaming eyes of fire, the
powerful lamps shot out their rays making weird color
effects in the forest—­huge tree-trunks loomed
a dead drab, like mute sentinels, grim and ominous,
that barred their way; now, in the full glare, the
foliage took on the softest fairy shade of green;
now, tapering off, heavier in color, it merged into
impenetrable black; and, with the jouncing of the
car, the light rays jiggling up and down gave an unnatural
semblance as of moving, animate things before them,
a myriad of them, ever retreating, but ever marshalling
their forces again as though threatening attack, as
though to oppose the car’s advance.

What was there to be afraid of? She tried to
laugh at herself—­it was perfectly ridiculous.
A little bit of rough road—­the forest that
she loved around her—­even if it was very
dark. They would come out eventually somewhere
on the trunk-road to Barton’s Mills—­that
was all there was to it. Meanwhile, it was quite
an experience, and she had every confidence in Thornton.
She glanced at him now. It was too dark to get
more than an indistinct outline of the clean-cut profile,
but there was something inspiriting in the alert,
self-possessed, competent poise of his body as he
crouched well forward over the wheel, his eyes never
lifting from the road ahead.

They appeared to be going a little faster now, too—­undoubtedly
the road was getting better. What was there to
be afraid of? It didn’t make it any more
pleasant for Thornton, who was probably reproaching
himself rather bitterly for having been tempted by
the “short cut,” to have her sit and mope
beside him!

She began to hum an air softly to herself—­and
then laughingly sang a bar or two aloud.

Thornton shot a quick, appreciative glance at her
and nodded, joining in the laugh.

“By Jove!” he said approvingly. “That
sounds good to me. I was afraid this beastly
stretch, bumping and crawling along in the dark, was
making you miserable.”

“Miserable!” exclaimed Helena. “Why,
the idea! What is there to be miserable about?
We’ll get through after a while—­and
the road’s better now than it was anyhow, isn’t
it?”

“Better?”

“You’re running faster.”

Page 90

“Oh—­er—­yes, of course,”
said Thornton quickly. “I wasn’t thinking
of what I said. I—­”

He stopped suddenly, as Helena lifted her hand to
her face.

“Why, it’s beginning to rain,” she
said.

“Yes; I’m afraid so,” he admitted.
“I was hoping we would get out of here before
it came.”

“Oh!” said Helena.

“And the worst of it is,” he added hurriedly,
“there’s no top to the car, and you’ve
no wraps.”

“Perhaps it won’t be anything more than
a shower,” said Helena hopefully.

“Perhaps not,” he agreed. “Anyway”—­he
stopped the car, and took off his coat—­“put
this on.”

“No—­please,” protested Helena.
“You’ll need it yourself.”

“Not at all,” said Thornton cheerily.
“And that light dress of yours would be soaked
through in no time.”

He held the coat for her, and she slipped it on—­and
his hand around her shoulder and neck, as he turned
the collar up and buttoned it gently about her, seemed
to linger as it touched her throat, and yet linger
with the most curious diffidence—­a sort
of reverence. Helena suddenly wanted to laugh—­and,
quick in her intuition, as suddenly wanted to cry.
It wasn’t much—­only a little touch.
It didn’t mean love, or passion, or feeling—­only
that, unconsciously in his respect, he held her up
to gaze upon herself again in that mocking mirror
where all was sham.

They started on—­Thornton silent once more,
busy with the car; Helena, her mind in riot, with
no wish for words.

The rain came steadily in a drizzle. She could
feel her dress growing damp around her knees—­and
she shivered a little. How strangely wonderful
the rain-beads looked on their background of green
leaves where the lamps played upon them—­they
seemed to catch and hold and reflect back the light
in a quick, passing procession of clear, sparkling
crystals. But it was raining more heavily now,
wasn’t it? The drops were no longer clinging
to the leaves, they were spattering dull and lustrelessly
to the ground. And Thornton seemed suddenly to
be in trouble—­he was bending down working
at something. How jerkily the car was moving!
And now it stopped.

Thornton swung out of his seat to the ground.

“It’s all right!” he called out
reassuringly. “I’ll have it fixed
in a minute.”

It was muddy enough now, and the ruts, holding the
rain, were regular wheel-traps. Apart from any
other trouble, Thornton did not like the prospect—­and,
away from Helena now, his face was serious. He
cranked the engine—­no result. He tried
it again with equal futility—­then, going
to the tool-box, he took out his electric flashlight,
and, lifting the engine hood, began to peer into the
machinery. Everything seemed all right.
He tried the crank again—­the engine, like
some cold, dead thing, refused to respond.

“What’s the matter?” Helena asked
him from the car.

“I don’t know,” Thornton answered
lightly. “I haven’t found out yet—­but
don’t you worry, it’s nothing serious.
I’ll have it in a jiffy.”

Page 91

Helena’s knowledge of motor cars and engine
trouble was not extensive—­she was conversant
only with the “fool’s mate” of motoring.

“Maybe there’s no gasoline,” she
suggested helpfully.

“Nonsense!” returned Thornton, with a
laugh. “I told Babson to see that the tank
was full before he brought the car around—­he
wouldn’t forget a thing like that.”

Thornton, nevertheless, tested the gasoline tank.

“Well?” inquired Helena, breaking the
silence that followed.

“There is no—­gasoline,” said
Thornton heavily.

Neither spoke for a moment. There was no sound
but the steady drip from the leaves. Then Helena
forced a laugh.

“Isn’t it ridiculous!” she said.
“That is what one is always making fun of others
for. I—­I don’t think it’s
going to stop raining—­do you? And
we’re miles and miles from anywhere. What
do people do when they’re caught like
this?”

Thornton did not answer at once. Bitterly reproachful
with himself, he stood there coatless in the rain.
If it had been a breakdown, an accident that was unavoidable,
a little of the sting might have gone out of the situation—­but
gasoline! This—­from rank, blatant,
glaring, inexcusable idiocy. Not on his part
perhaps—­but that did not lessen his responsibility.
They were miles, as she had said, from anywhere—­four
miles at least in either direction from the main road,
and as many more probably after that from any farmhouse—­he
remembered that for half an hour before they had turned
into the “short cut” they had seen no sign
of habitation—­and what lay in the other
direction, ahead, would in all probability be the
same—­they were up in the timber regions,
in the heart of them—­she couldn’t
walk miles in the rain with the roads in a vile condition,
and growing viler every minute as the rain sank in
and the mud grew deeper. And then another thought—­a
thought that came now, sharp and quick, engulfing
the mere discomfort of a miserable night spent there
in the woods—­the clatter of busy, gossiping
tongues seemed already to be dinning their abominable
noises in his ears. And that he, that he—­yes,
it seemed to sweep upon him in a sudden, overmastering
surge, the realization that the delight and joy of
her companionship through the month that was gone
was love that leaped now into fierce, jealous flame,
maddened at a breath that would smirch her in the eyes
of others—­that he should be the
cause of it! “What do people do when
they’re caught like this?”—­in
their innocence there seemed an unfathomed depth of
irony in her words, but as he unconsciously repeated
them they cleared his brain and brought him suddenly
to face the immediate practical problem that confronted
them. What was to be done?

“Shall—­shall I get out?” she
called to him, a hint of reminder in her tones that
she had spoken to him before and received no answer.

Thornton moved back to the side of the car.

Page 92

“Miss Vail,” he said contritely, “I—­I
don’t know what to say to you for getting you
into this. I—­”

“I know,” she interrupted quickly, leaning
over the side of the car and placing her hand on his
arm. “Don’t try to say anything.
It’s not your fault—­it’s not
either of our faults. Now tell me what you think
the best thing is to do, and, you’ll see, I’ll
make the best of it—­there’s no use
being miserable about it.”

“You’re a game little woman!” he
said earnestly, quite unnecessarily clasping the hand
on his arm and wringing it to endorse his verdict.
“And that makes it a lot easier, you know.
Well then, we might as well face the whole truth at
one fell swoop. We’re up against it”—­he
laughed cheerfully—­“hard. It’s
miles to anywhere—­we don’t know where
‘anywhere’ is—­and of course
you can’t walk aimlessly around in the mud and
rain.”

“N—­no,” she said thoughtfully.
“I suppose there’s no sense in that.”

“And of course you can’t sit out here
in the wet all night.”

“That sounds comforting—­propitious
even,” commented Helena.

“Quite!” agreed Thornton, laughing again.
“Well, you wait here a moment, and I’ll
see if I can’t knock up some sort of shelter—­I
used to be pretty good at that sort of thing.”

“And I’ll help,” announced Helena,
preparing to get out.

“By keeping at least your feet dry,” he
amended. “No—­please. Just
stay where you are, Miss Vail. You’ll get
as much protection here from the branches overhead
as you will anywhere meanwhile, and you’ll be
more comfortable.”

She watched him as he disappeared into the wood, and
after that, like a flitting will-o’-the-wisp,
watched his flashlight moving about amongst the trees.
Then presently the cheery blaze of a fire from where
he was at work sprang up, and she heard the crackle
of resinous pine knots—­then a great crashing
about, the snapping of branches as he broke them from
larger limbs—­and a rapid fire of small talk
from him as he worked.

Helena answered him more or less mechanically—­her
mind, roving from one consideration of their plight
to another, had caught at a certain viewpoint and
was groping with it. They were stalled more effectively
than any accident to the car could have stalled them—­they
were there for the night, there seemed no escape from
that. But there was nothing to be afraid of.
She had no fears about passing the night alone with
him here in the woods—­why should she? Why
should she! She laughed low, suddenly, bitterly.
Why should she—­even if he were other than
the man he was, even if he were of the lowest type!
Fear—­of that! A yearning, so
intense as for an instant to leave her weak, swept
upon her—­a yearning full of pain, of shame,
of remorse, of hopelessness—­oh, God, if
only she might have had the right to fear!
Then passion seized her in wild, turbulent unrestraint—­hatred
for this clean-limbed, pure-minded man, who flaunted
all that his life stood for in her face—­hatred
for everybody in this life of hers, for all were good
save her—­hatred, miserable, unbridled hatred
for herself.

Page 93

And then it passed, the mood—­and she tried
to think more calmly, still answering him as he called
from the woods. She had seen a great deal of
Thornton lately—­a great deal. He had
been kind and thoughtful and considerate—­nothing
more. More! What more could there have been?
Love! There was something of mockery in that,
wasn’t there? Everything she thought about
lately, every way her mind turned seemed to hold something
of mockery now. Of course, Mrs. Thornton’s
words expressing the wish that she and Thornton might
come together had been often enough with her—­mockingly
again!—­but Thornton could have known nothing
of that—­so, after all, what did that matter?
She had snatched at every opportunity to motor with
Thornton despite Doc’s protests, protests that
had grown sullen and angry of late—­snatched
at the opportunities eagerly, as she would snatch
at a breath of air where all else stifled her—­snatched
at them because they took her out of herself temporarily,
away from everything, where everything at times seemed
to be driving her mad. Hate Thornton! No,
of course, she didn’t hate him—­she
had thought that a moment ago because—­because
her brain was—­was—­oh, she didn’t
know—­so tired and weary, and she was cold
now and quite wet. She didn’t hate him,
she even—­

“All ready now—­house to let furnished”—­he
was calling out, laughing as he came thrashing through
the undergrowth—­“excellent situation,
high altitude, luxuriant pine grove surrounds the
property, and—­and”—­he
had halted beside the car and opened the door—­“what
else do they say?”

Helena caught his spirit—­or, rather, forced
herself to do so. It wasn’t quite fair
that one of them should do all the pretending.

“Flies,” she laughed. “They
always speak of flies in Maine.”

“None!” said Thornton promptly. “There
hasn’t been one since the house was built.
Now then, Miss Vail”—­he held out his
arms.

“Oh, but really, I can walk.”

“And I can carry you,” he said—­and,
from the step, gathered her into his arms.

And then, as she lay there passively at first, she
seemed to sense again that curious diffidence, that
gentleness, like the touch upon her throat of a little
while ago, though now he held her in both his arms.
How strong he was—­and, oh, how miserably
wet—­her hand around his shoulder felt the
thin shirt clinging soggily to his arm. Yes; she
was glad he hadn’t let her walk—­it
wasn’t far, but she would have had to force her
way continually through bushes that scattered showers
from their dripping leaves, and underfoot she could
hear his boots squash through the mud. And then
suddenly it happened—­the trees, just a yard
or so from the fire, were thick together, tangled—­she
bent her head quickly, instinctively, to avoid a low-hanging
branch as he for the same reason swerved a little—­and
their cheeks lay close-pressed against each other’s,
her hair sweeping his forehead, their lips mingling
one another’s breaths. He seemed to stumble—­then
his arms closed about her in a quick, fierce pressure,
clasping her, straining her to him—­relaxed
as suddenly—­and then he had set her down
inside the shelter he had built.

Page 94

Quick her breath was coming now, and across the fire
for a moment she met his eyes. His face was gray,
and his hands at his sides were clenched.

“I’ll—­I’ll get the seat
out of the car,” he said hoarsely. “It
will help to make things more comfortable.”
And turning abruptly, he started back for the road
again.

Helena did not move. Mechanically her eyes took
in the little hut, crude, but rainproof at least—­branches
heaped across two forked limbs for a roof; the trunk
of a big tree for the rear wall; branches thrust upright
into the ground for the sides—­the whole
a little triangular shaped affair. The fire blazed
in front just within shelter at the entrance; and
beside it was piled quite a little heap of fuel that
he had gathered.

He came back bringing the leather upholstered seat,
shook the rain from it, and dried it with the help
of the fire and his handkerchief—­then set
it down inside the hut. His face was turned from
her; and as he spoke, breaking an awkward silence,
his voice was conscious, hurried.

“I’m not going to be gone a minute more
than I can help, Miss Vail. It’s mighty
rough accommodation for you, but there’s one
consolation at least—­you’ll be perfectly
safe.”

Helena seated herself, and held her skirt to the fire.

“Gone!” she said, a little dully.
“Where are you going?”

“Why, to get help of course,” he told
her.

“Help!”—­she shook her head.
“You don’t know where to find any—­you
only know for a certainty that there isn’t any
within miles.”

“I know there’s a house back on the main
road,” he said. “I noticed it as
we came along.”

“That’s seven or eight miles from here,”
she returned. “And it’s raining harder
than ever—­mud up to your ankles—­it
would take you hours to reach it.”

“Possibly two, or two and a half,” he
said lightly.

“Yes; and another two at least to get back.
I won’t hear of you doing any such thing—­you
are wet through now. It’s far better to
wait for daylight and then probably the storm will
be over.”

“But don’t you see, Miss Vail”—­his
voice was suddenly grave, masterful—­“don’t
you see that there is no other thing to do?”

“No,” said Helena. “I don’t
see anything of the kind. I won’t have you
do anything like that for me—­it’s
not to be thought of.”

“It’s awfully good of you to think of
me,” he said in a low tone; “but, really,
it won’t be half as bad as you are picturing
it in your mind. And really”—­he
hesitated, fumbling for his words—­“you
see—­that is—­what other people
might say—­your—­reputation—­”

With a sudden cry, white-faced, Helena was on her
feet, staring at him, her hands clutched at her bosom—­a
wild, demoniacal, mocking orgy in her soul. Her
reputation! It seemed she wanted to scream out
the words—­her reputation!

Page 95

Thornton’s face flushed with a quick-sweeping
flood of crimson.

“I’m a brute—­a brute with a
blundering tongue!” he cried miserably.
“You had not thought of that—­and I
made you. I could have found another excuse for
going if I had only had wit enough. I was a brute
once before to-night, and—­” He stopped,
and for a moment stood there looking at her, stood
in the firelight, his face white again even in the
ruddy glow—­and then he was gone.

Time passed without meaning to Helena. The steady
patter of the rain was on the leaves, the sullen,
constant drip of water to the ground, and now, occasionally,
a rush of wind, a heavier downpour. She sat before
the fire, staring into it, her elbows on her knees,
her face held tightly in her hands, the brown hair,
wet and wayward now, about her temples. Once
she moved, once her eyes changed their direction—­to
fix upon her sleeve in a strange, questioning surprise.

“I let him go without his coat,” she said.

—­XVIII—­

THE BOOMERANG

It was early afternoon, as Madison, emerging from
the wagon track, and walking slowly, started across
the lawn toward the Patriarch’s cottage.
He was in a mood that he made no attempt to define—­except
that it wasn’t a very pleasant mood. Before
Thornton had returned to Needley it had been bad enough,
after that, with his infernal car, it had been—­hell.

Madison’s fists clenched, and his gray eyes
glinted angrily. His hands had been tied like
a baby’s—­like a damned infant’s!
Helena was getting away from him further every day,
and he couldn’t stop it—­without stopping
the game! He couldn’t tell Thornton that
Helena belonged to him—­had belonged to
him! He couldn’t even evidence an interest
in what was going on. He had to put on a front,
a suave, cordial, dignified front before Thornton—­while
he itched to smash the other’s face to pulp!
Hell—­that’s what it was—­pure,
unadulterated hell! He couldn’t get near
Helena alone with a ten-foot pole, morning, noon or
night—­she had taken good care of that.
And he wanted Helena—­he wanted her!
It was an obsession with him now—­at times
driving him half crazy,—­and it didn’t
help any that he saw her grow more glorious, more beautiful
every day! Of course she knew she had him—­had
him where she knew he couldn’t do a thing—­where
she could laugh at him—­go the limit with
Thornton if she liked. But, curse it, it wasn’t
only Thornton—­that was what he could not
understand—­she had begun to keep away from
him before ever Thornton had come back.

Madison was near the porch now, and, raising his eyes,
noted a supplicant going into the shrine-room—­a
woman, richly dressed but in widow’s weeds,
who walked feebly. The game went on by itself,
once started—­there were half a hundred
more about the lawn! Like a snowball rolling
down hill, as he had put it at the Roost. The
Roost! If he only had Helena back there for about
a minute there’d be an end of this! She’d
go a little too far one of these days—­a
little too far—­it was pretty near far enough
now—­and then there’d be a showdown,
game or no game, and somebody would get hurt in the
smash, and—­

Page 96

He lifted his eyes again, as some one came hurrying
through the cottage door. It was the Flopper.
And then to his surprise, he found himself being pushed
unceremoniously from the porch and pulled excitedly
behind the trellis.

“Now wouldn’t dat sting youse!”
ejaculated the Flopper. “How’s she
goin’ to him when she ain’t here?”

“Not here?” repeated Madison sharply.
“Where is she?”

The Flopper looked down his nose.

“I dunno,” said he.

Madison stared at him for a moment—­then
he reached out and caught the Flopper’s arm
in a sudden and far from gentle grip.

“Out with it!” he snapped.

“I dunno where she is,” said the Flopper,
with some reluctance. “She ain’t
back yet, dat’s all.”

“Back from where?”—­Madison’s
grip tightened.

The Flopper blinked.

“Aw, wot’s de use!” he blurted out,
as though his mind, suddenly made up, brought him
unbounded relief. “Youse’ll find it
out anyhow. Say, she went off wid Thornton in
de buzz-wagon yesterday, an’ I put de Patriarch
to bed last night ‘cause she wasn’t back,
an’ dat’s wot’s de matter wid him,
she ain’t showed up since an’ he’s
near off his chump, an’—­fer God’s
sake let go my arm, Doc, youse’re breakin’
it!”

A sort of cold frenzy seemed to seize Madison.
He was perfectly calm, he felt himself perfectly calm
and composed. Off all night with Thornton—­eh?
Funny, wasn’t it? She’d gone pretty
far at last—­gone the limit.

“Why didn’t you send me word this morning?”—­was
that his own voice speaking? Well, he wouldn’t
have recognized it—­but he was perfectly
calm nevertheless.

Madison’s arm fell away—­to his side.
He felt a whiteness creeping to his face and lips,
felt his lips twitch, felt the fingers of his hands
curl in and the nails begin to press into the palms.

“Mabbe,” suggested the Flopper timidly,
“mabbe dere was an accident.”

Madison made no answer.

The Flopper shifted from foot to foot and licked his
lips, stealing frightened glances at Madison’s
face.

“Wot—­wot’ll I do wid de Patriarch?”
he stammered out miserably.

And then Madison smiled at him—­not happily,
but eloquently.

“Swipe me!” mumbled the Flopper, as he
backed out from the trellis. “Dis love
game’s fierce—­an’ mabbe I
don’t know! ‘Sposin’ she’d
been Mamie an’ me the Doc—­’sposin’
it had!” He gulped hastily. “Swipe
me!” said the Flopper with emotion.

Page 97

Madison, motionless, watched the Flopper disappear.
He wasn’t quite so calm now, not so cool and
collected and composed. He must go somewhere
and think this out—­somewhere where it would
be quiet and he wouldn’t be disturbed.

A step sounded on the path—­Madison looked
through the trellis. A man, with yellow, unhealthy
skin and sunken cheeks, his head bowed, was passing
in through the porch. It caught Madison with fierce,
exquisite irony. Why not go there himself if
he wanted quiet—­the shrine-room—­the
place of meditation! Well, he wanted to meditate!
He laughed jarringly. The shrine-room—­for
him! Great! Immense! Magnificent!
Why not? That’s what he had created it
for, wasn’t it—­to meditate in!

He stepped inside. The woman, whom he had seen
enter a short while before, was sitting in a sort
of rigid, strained attitude in the far corner; the
man, who had just preceded him, had taken the chair
by the fireplace—­they were the only occupants
of the room. There was no sound save his own
footsteps—­neither of the others looked at
him. There was quiet, a profound stillness—­and
the softened light from the shuttered window fell
mellow all about, fell like a benediction upon the
simplicity of the few plain articles that the room
contained—­the round rag mats upon the white-scrubbed
floor; the hickory chairs, severe, uncushioned; the
table, with its little japanned box and book.

Madison’s eyes fixed upon the japanned box,
as he leaned now, arms folded, against the wall—­a
jewel, even in the subdued light, glowed crimson-warm
where it nested on a crumpled bed of bank-notes—­a
ruby ring—­the last contribution—­it
must have been the woman who had placed it there.
Madison glanced at her involuntarily—­but
his thoughts were far away again in a moment.

Anger and a blind rage of jealousy were gripping him
now. Accident! The thought only fanned his
fury. Accident! Yes; it was likely—­as
an excuse! There would have been an accident
all right—­leave that to them! Thornton
perhaps wasn’t the stamp of man to seek an adventure
of that kind deliberately—­perhaps he wasn’t—­and
perhaps he was—­you never could tell—­but
what difference did that make! Helena was that kind
of a woman—­though he’d always
thought her true to him since he’d known her—­and
Thornton, whatever kind of a man he was, wouldn’t
run away from her arms, would he?

The red glow from the ruby ring had vanished—­the
man had risen from his seat and was placing something
in the box on top of the ring—­Madison’s
mind subconsciously absorbed the fact that it was a
little sheaf of yellow-backed bills. And now
the man bent to the table and was writing in the book.

Yellow-backs and rubies! Rubies and yellowbacks!
Madison’s lips thinned and curled downward at
the corners. Oh, it was coming all right, money,
jewels, pelf, rolling in merrily every day, there wasn’t
any stopping it, but he was paying for it, and paying
for it at a price he didn’t like—­Helena.
Helena! She wanted Thornton, did she—­with
his money! Wanted to dangle a millionaire on
her string—­eh? She’d throw him
over—­would she! And she thought she
had him where he couldn’t lift a finger to stop
it—­just sit back and grin like a poor, sick
fool!

Page 98

The red crept up the knotted cords of Madison’s
neck, suffused the set jaws, and, as though suddenly
liberated to run its course where it would, swept
in a tide over cheeks and temples.

He couldn’t do a thing—­couldn’t
he! Well, he’d see the game in Gehenna before
Thornton or any other man got her away from him.
She belonged to him—­to him! And
he’d have her, hold her, own her—­she
was his—­his! And he’d settle
with Thornton too, by Heaven!

A laugh, low, unpleasant, purled to his lips—­and
he checked it with a sort of strange mechanical realization
that he must not laugh aloud. His eyes swept
the room—­the man had returned to his seat,
the woman had not moved, both were silent, motionless—­that
ghastly, hallowed, sanctimonious hush—­that
subdued, damnable light—­meditation!

He turned—­and stopped. Came a cry
spontaneously from the man and the woman—­they
were on their feet—­no, on their knees.
The doorway at the further end of the room was framing
a majestic figure, tall and stately—­and
a sun-gleam struggling suddenly through the lattice
seemed to leap in a golden ray to caress in homage
the snow-white hair, the silver beard that fell upon
the breast, the saintly face of the Patriarch.

Then into the room advanced the Patriarch, and his
hands were outstretched before him, and he moved them
a little to and fro—­and the gesture, the
poise, the mien, as, touching nothing he seemed to
feel his way through space itself, was as one invoking
a blessing of peace ineffable.

Spellbound, Madison watched. Upon the face was
a yearning that saddened it, and, saddening, glorified
it; the head was slightly turned as though to listen—­while
slowly, with measured, certain tread, as though indeed
he had no need for eyes, the Patriarch circled the
table and passed on down the room. The man and
the woman reached out and touched him reverently,
and drew back reverently to let him pass, and, rising
from their knees, followed him through the door and
out onto the porch.

The room was empty. Madison stared at the doorway.
Upon him fell a sudden awe—­it was as though
a vision, an ethereal presence, some strange embodiment
of power, had been and gone—­and yet still
remained.

And now from without there came a sound like a distant
murmur. It rose and swelled, and began to roll
in its volume, and then, like the clarion sound of
trumpets, voices burst into glad acclaim.

“The Patriarch! The Patriarch! The
Patriarch!”

From the little hallway came the Flopper, running—­and
he stopped and gaped at Madison.

“I left him in his room fer a minute,”
he gasped. “He’s—­he’s
lookin’ fer Helena.”

And then Madison shook himself together—­and
smiled ironically. And at the smile the Flopper
hurried on.

Madison stepped out onto the porch. Helena!
Helena! Within him seemed to burn a rage of hell;
but it seemed, too, most strangely that for the moment
this rage was held in abeyance, that something temporarily
supplanted it—­this scene before him.

Page 99

Onward across the lawn moved the Patriarch, and the
Flopper had joined him now; but the Patriarch, unheeding,
turning neither to the right nor to the left, his
arms still extended before him, kept on. And the
people cried aloud:

“He is coming—­he is coming!
The Patriarch! The Patriarch!”

Madison moved on—­out upon the lawn himself.

From everywhere, from every scattered spot where they
had been, men and women ran and limped and dragged
themselves along, all converging on one point—­the
Patriarch.

Madison, in the midst of them now, hurried—­for
it was plainly evident that the Flopper’s control
over the Patriarch was gone. He reached the Patriarch
and touched the other’s arm—­and at
the touch the Patriarch halted instantly, his hand
went out and lay upon Madison’s sleeve in recognition,
and he turned his face, and it was smiling and there
was relief upon it—­and confidence and trust,
as, suffering himself to be guided, they started back
toward the cottage.

And then upon Madison came again that sense of awe,
but now intensified. From every hand tear-stained
faces greeted him, white faces, faces full of sorrow
and suffering through which struggled hope—­hope—­hope.
They flung themselves before the Patriarch—­yet
never blocked the way. They cried, they wept,
they prayed—­and some were silent. It
seemed that souls, naked, stripped, bare, held themselves
up to his gaze. Men, prostrate on stretchers,
tried to rise and stagger nearer—­and fell.
Friends, where there were friends to help, tugged and
dragged desperately at cots—­and from the
cots in piteous, agonized appeal the helpless cried
out to the Patriarch to come to them. All of human
agony and fear and hope and despair and terror seemed
loosed in a mad and swirling vortex. And ever
the cries arose, and ever around them, giving way,
closing in again, pressed the soul-rent throng.

And presently to Madison it seemed as though he had
awakened from some terrifying dream, as, in the Patriarch’s
room again, he swept away a bead of sweat from his
forehead, and stood and looked at the Patriarch and
the Flopper.

The Flopper licked his lips, and pulled the Patriarch’s
chair forward—­but his hands trembled violently.

“It’s been gettin’ me, Doc,”
he whispered, “an’ I can’t help it.
It’s been gettin’ into me all de time.
Say, I wisht it was over. Honest to God I do!
Dis—­dis makes me queer. Say, de Patriarch’s
got me, Doc—­an’—­an’—­say—­dere’s
been somethin’ goin’ on inside me dat’s
got me hard.”

Madison did not answer—­but he started suddenly—­and
as suddenly stepped to the window and looked out.
Over the cries, the wailings, the confused medley
of voices, growing lower now, subsiding, there had
come the throb of a motor car.

Madison’s eyes narrowed—­that
was supreme again. A car was coming to a stop
before the porch—­Thornton was helping Helena
to alight.

Page 100

Madison turned and caught the Flopper’s arm
in a fierce, imperative grasp.

“You keep your mouth shut—­do you
hear?” he flung out, clipping off his words.
“You haven’t seen me to-day—­understand!”
And, dropping the Flopper’s arm, he stepped
quickly across the little hall to Helena’s door,
opened it, went in—­and closed the door behind
him.

And the Flopper, staring, licked his lips again.

“Swipe me!” he croaked hoarsely.
“Pipe de eyes on de Doc! Dere’ll be
somethin’ doin’ now!”

—­XIX—­

THE SANCTUARY OF DARKNESS

There was a grim, merciless smile on Madison’s
lips; and a whiteness in his face windowed the passion
that seethed within him. He stood motionless,
listening, in Helena’s room. He heard the
automobile going away again; then he heard Helena’s
light step in the hallway without—­and the
smile died as his lips thinned.

But she did not come in—­instead, he heard
her go into the Patriarch’s room, heard her
talking to the Patriarch, and bid the Flopper go to
the kitchen and make her some tea. Then the Flopper’s
step sounded, passing down to the rear, of the cottage.

The minutes passed—­then that light footfall
again. The door of the room swung suddenly wide—­and
closed—­there was a cry—­and Helena,
wide-eyed, the red of her cheeks fading away, leaned
heavily back against the door.

Neither spoke. Madison, in the center of the
room, did not move. The smile came back to his
lips.

Madison gave a short laugh—­that was like
a curse. His hands at his sides knotted into
lumps.

Then Madison spoke.

“Why don’t you say, ’you!—­you!’—­and
scream it out and clutch at your bosom the way they
do in story books!” he flung out raucously.
“Why don’t you do your little stunt—­go
on, you’re on for the turn—­you can
put anything over me, I’m only a complacent,
blind-eyed fool! Anything goes! Why don’t
you start your act?”

“You don’t know what you are saying,”
she said in a low voice. “If there’s
anything you want to talk about, we’d better
wait until you’re cooler.”

“Oh, hell!” he roared, his passion full
to the surface now. “Cut out the bunk—­cut
it out! Anything! No, it isn’t much
of anything—­for you—­out all
night with Thornton. Do you think I’m going
to stand for it! Do you think I’m going
to sit and suck my thumb and share you, and—­”

“You lie!” She was away from the door
now, close before him, her breath coming fast, white
to the lips, and in a frenzy her little fists pummelled
upon him. “It’s a lie—­a
lie—­a lie! It’s a lie—­and
you know it!”

He pushed her roughly from him.

“It is, eh?”—­his words came
in a sort of wild laugh. “And I know it—­do
I? Why should I know it? What do you think
you are? Say, you’d think you were trying
to kid yourself into believing you’re the real
thing—­the real, sweet, shy, modest Miss
Vail. Cut it out! You’re name’s
Smith—­maybe! And it’s my money
that’s keeping you, and you belong to me—­do
you understand?”

Page 101

She stood swaying a little, her hands still tightly
clenched, breathing through half parted lips in short,
quick, jerky inhalations like dry sobs.

“It’s true,” she faltered suddenly—­and
suddenly buried her face in her hands. And then
she looked up again, and the brown eyes in their depths
held an anger and a shame. “It’s true—­I
was—­was—­what you say. But
now”—­her voice hurried on, an eagerness,
a strange earnestness in it—­“you
must believe me—­you must. I’ll
make you—­I must make you.”

“Oh, don’t hurt yourself trying to do
it!” jeered Madison. “We’re
talking plain now. I’m not taking into account
how you feel about it —­don’t you
fool yourself for a minute. The sanctity of my
home hasn’t been ruined—­because it
couldn’t be! Get that? Thornton don’t
get you—­not for keeps! But
you and he don’t make a monkey of me again.
Do you understand—­say, do you get that?
You’re mine—­whether you like
it or not—­whether you’d rather have
Thornton or not. But I’ll fix you both
for this—­I’m no angel with a cherub’s
smile! I’ll take it out of Thornton till
the laugh he’s got now fades to a fare-thee-well;
and I’ll put you where there aren’t any
strings tying me up the way there are here. Do
you understand!” His voice rose suddenly, and
for a moment he seemed to lose all control of himself
as he reached for her and caught her shoulder.
“I love you,” he flashed out between his
teeth. “I love you—­that’s
what’s the matter with me! And you know
that—­you know you’ve got me there—­and
you’d play the fool with me, would you!”
He dropped his hands—­and laughed a short,
savage bark—­and stepped back and stared
at her.

“Will you listen?”—­she was
twisting her hands, her head was drooped, the long
lashes veiled her eyes, her lips were quivering.
“Will you listen?” she said again, fighting
to steady her voice. “It was an accident.”

“I saw the machine when you drove up—­it
was a wreck!” snapped Madison sarcastically.

“We ran out of gasoline,” she said quietly.

And then Madison laughed—­fiercely—­in
his derision.

“Oh, keep on!” he rasped. “I
told you I was only a blind fool that you could put
anything over on! That accounts for it, of course—­a
breakdown isn’t so easy to get away with.
Gasoline!”

“We were miles from anywhere,” she went
on. “We had taken what we thought was a
short cut. Mr. Thornton built a shelter for me
in the woods, and went to—­to—­”

He caught up her hesitation like a flash.

“Fake the lines, Helena, if you haven’t
had enough rehearsals,” he suggested ironically.
“Anything goes—­with me.”

And now a tinge of color came to Helena’s cheeks,
and the brown eyes raised, and flashed, and dropped.

“He went to try and find help,” she said.
“He was out all night in the storm. I do
not know how far he must have walked. I know the
nearest house was five or six miles away—­and
there was no horse there—­the man had driven
to some town that morning. It was almost daylight
before Mr. Thornton at last came back with a team.
We were forty miles from here—­we sent the
team to the nearest town for gasoline and then motored
back.” She stopped—­and then,
with a catch in her voice: “He—­he
was very good to me.”

Page 102

“Good to me”—­the words seemed
to stab at Madison, seemed to ring in his ears and
goad him with a fiercer jealousy—­and her
story of the night, what she had been saying, save
those words, was as nothing, meant nothing, was swept
from his consciousness—­and only she, standing
there before him, glorious, maddening in her beauty,
remained. Soul, mind and body leaped into fiery
passion—­she was his, and his she always
would be—­those eyes, those lips, the white
throat, those perfect arms to cling about his neck—­and
all of heaven and hell and earth were naught beside
her.

“I love you!”—­his face was
white, his words fierce-breathed, almost incoherent—­and
he leaned toward her with a sudden, uncontrollable
movement, his arms sweeping out to clasp her.
“I love you, Helena—­I love you.
Do you understand—­it’s you!
You—­I love you!”

“You love me!”—­she retreated
from him, but her head was raised now, and her voice
rang with a bitterness cold as the touch of death.
“Love! What do you know of love!
We talk plain, you say. Love—­love for
me! Passion, vice, lust, sin—­and,
oh, my God, degradation and misery and shame—­love!
Love! That is your love!”

He stood for a moment and stared at her again—­and
her face was as pallid ivory. And something seemed
to daze him, and he brushed his hand across his eyes—­the
logic was faulty, torn and pitiful, and he groped
after the flaw.

“It’s—­it’s your love
as well as mine,” he said in a stumbling way—­then
his brain flashed quick into action. “My
love—­what other love have you known
but that?” he cried. “It’s our
love—­the love we have known together—­and
we’re going back to it—­see? I’ve
had enough of this. You pack your trunks—­and
pack them quick! We’re going to beat it
out of here! We’re going back to our—­love.
We’re going back where I don’t have to
sit around like a puling fool and watch Thornton chuck
you under the chin—­we’re going where
he’ll want a tombstone if he ever shows his
face there. You thought the game would hold me
to the last jackpot—­did you? Well,
I’ve got enough—­and there’s
no game big enough to make me stand for this.
That looks like love—­doesn’t it?”
He burst again into a sudden, mirthless laugh—­and
once again swept his hand across his eyes. “We’re
going to beat it out of here now—­to-night—­to-morrow
morning.”

But now she had drawn further away from him—­and
there was a frightened look in her eyes, and her lips
quivered pitifully.

“That! That—­is love,”
he said wildly. “The only love you know.
What more do you want? There’s loot enough
now, and—­ha, ha!—­that little
contribution of Thornton’s, to give you all the
money you want. Love, Helena—­you and
I—­the old love—­you and I together
again, Helena. I tell you I love you—­do
you hear? I love you—­and I’ll
have you—­I love you! What do you know,
what do you care about any other kind of love!”

Page 103

She looked at him, misery and fear still in her eyes,
and her slight figure seemed to droop, and her hands
hung heavy, listless, at her sides.

“I care”—­the words came in
a strange mechanical way from her lips. “Oh,
I care. I can’t—­I won’t
go back to that. And I know—­I know
now. I have learned what love is.”

Quick over Madison’s face surged the red in
an unstemmed tide—­volcanic within him his
love that he knew now possessed his very soul, jealousy
that, blinding, robbed him of his senses, roused him
to frenzy.

“Oh, you’ve learned what love is, have
you—­with him!” he cried—­and
sprang for her and snatched her into his arms.
“And you won’t come, eh? Well, I’ve
learned what love is too in the last month—­and
if I can’t get it one way, I’ll get it
another”—­he was raining mad kisses
upon her face, her hair, her eyes—­“I
love you, I tell you—­I love you!”

With a cry she tried to struggle from him—­and
then fought and struck at him, beating upon his face
with her fists. Fiercer, closer he held her—­around
the little room, staggering this way and that, they
circled. He kissed her, laughing hoarsely like
a madman, laughing at the blows, beside himself, not
knowing what he did—­mad—­mad—­mad.
He kissed her, kissed the white throat where the dress
was torn now at the neck; imprisoned a little fist
that struck at him and kissed the quivering knuckles;
kissed the wealth of glorious, burnished-copper hair
that, unloosened, fell about her, kissed it and buried
his face in its rare fragrance. And then—­and
then his arms were empty—­and he was staring
at the calm, majestic figure of the Patriarch—­and
Helena was crouched upon the floor, and, sobbing,
was clinging with arms entwined around the old man’s
knees.

And so for a little while Madison stood and stared—­what
had brought the Patriarch there—­the Patriarch
who could neither see nor hear nor speak—­what
had brought him from his own room across the hall!
And Madison stared, and his hands crept to his temples
and pressed upon them—­weak he seemed as
from some paroxysm of madness that had passed over
him. The sunlight streaming through the window
sheened the luxuriant mass of hair that falling over
shoulders and to the waist seemed alone to cloak the
little figure in its crouched position—­the
little figure that shook so convulsively with sobs—­the
little figure that clung so desperately at the feet
of this god-like, regal man, whose beard was silver,
whose hair was hoary white, upon whose face, marring
none its strength or self-possession, was a troubled,
anxious, questioning look.

Strange! Strange! Madison’s hands
fell to his sides. The Patriarch’s eyes
were turned full upon him, wavering not so much as
by the fraction of an inch—­full upon him.
And then, as into some holy sanctuary, fending her
from harm and danger, the Patriarch turned a little
to interpose himself before Madison, and, raising
Helena, held her in his arms, her head against his
bosom—­and one hand lay upon her head and
stroked it tenderly. But upon Madison was still
turned those sightless eyes, that noble face, serene,
commanding even in its perturbation, even in its alert
and searching look.

Page 104

Madison stirred now—­stirred uneasily—­while
the silence held. There was a solemnity in the
silence that seemed to creep upon and pervade the
room—­a sense of a vast something that was
the antithesis of turmoil, passion, strife, that seemed
to radiate from the saintly figure whose lips were
mute, whose ears heard no sound, whose eyes saw no
sight. And upon Madison it fell potent, masterful,
and passion fled, and in its place came a strange,
groping response within him, a revulsion, a penitence—­and
he bowed his head.

And then Helena spoke—­but her head was
turned away from him, hidden on the Patriarch’s
breast.

“Once,” she said, and her words were like
broken whispers, for she was sobbing still, “once,
long, long ago, when I was a little girl, I read the
story of Mary Magdalen. I had almost forgotten
it, it was so long ago, but it has come back to me,
and—­and it is a glad story—­at
the end.”

She stopped—­and Madison raised his head,
and his face was strained as with some sudden wonder
as he looked at her.

“They love me here,” she said. “They
trust me and they think me good—­as they
are. All think me that—­the little children
and this dear man here—­and for a little
while, since I have been here, I have lived like that.
They made me believe that it was true—­true.
And there was shame and agony—­and hope.
It seemed they could not all be wrong, and I have
asked and prayed that I might make it true always—­and—­and
forgiveness for what I was.”

“You mean,” he said again hoarsely, and
he stepped toward her now, “you mean that you
are—­straight!”

She did not answer—­only now she turned
her face toward him and lifted up her head.

And for a long minute Madison gazed into the tear-splashed
eyes, deep, brave in chastened wistfulness, gazed—­and
like a man stunned walked from the room, the cottage,
and out across the lawn.

—­XX—­

TO THE VICTOR ARE THE SPOILS

Many were still about the lawn as he left the cottage—­they
were all about him, those sick, half frantic creatures—­and
still they made noises; still some of them cried and
sobbed; still in their waning paroxysms they moved
hither and thither. They appealed to some numbed,
dormant sense in Madison, in a subconscious way, as
things to be avoided. And so, almost mechanically,
he took the little path that, striking off at right
angles to the wagon track where it joined the Patriarch’s
lawn, came out again upon the main road at the further
end of the village.

And, as he walked, like tidal waves on-rushing, emotions,
utterly at variance one with another, hurled themselves
upon him, and he was swept from his mental balance,
tossed here and there, rolled gasping, strangling
in the chaos and turmoil of the waters, as it were,
and, rising, was hurled back again.

Page 105

White as death itself was Madison’s face; and
at times his fingers with a twitching movement curled
into clenched fists, at times his open palms sought
his temples in a queer wriggling way and pressed upon
them. Doubt, anger, fear, a rage unhallowed—­in
cycles—­buffeted him until his brain reeled,
and he was as a man distraught.

It began at the beginning, that cycle, and dragged
him along—­and left him like one swooning,
tottering, upon the edge of a precipice. And then
it began over again.

And it began always with a picture of the Roost that
night—­the vicious, unkempt, ragged figure
of the Flopper—­the sickly, thin, greedy
face of Pale Face Harry, the drug fiend, winching
a little as he plunged the needle into his flesh—­the
easy, unprincipled gaiety and eagerness of Helena
for the new path of crime—­crime—­crime—­the
Roost exuded crime—­filth—­immorality—­typified
them, framed them well as they had sat there, the
four of them, while that bruised-nosed bouncer had
brought them drink on his rattling tin tray. And
then his own self-satisfied, smug, complacent egotism
at his own cleverness, his unbounded confidence in
his own ability to pull off the game, and—­

Well, he had pulled it off—­he’d won
it—­won it—­won it—­everybody
had fallen for it—­the boobs had been plentiful—­the
harvest rich. What was the matter with him!
He’d won—­was winning every time the
clock ticked. Somebody back there was probably
throwing good hard coin at him this minute—­the
damned fool! Madison threw back his head to laugh
in derision, for there was mocking, contemptuous laughter
in his soul—­but the laugh died still-born
upon his lips.

It was fear now—­fear—­staggering,
appalling him. He was facing something—­something—­his
brain did not seem to define it—­something
that was cold and stern and immutable, that was omnipotent,
that embodied awe—­a condemnation unalterable,
unchangeable, before which he shrank back with his
soul afraid. Before him seemed to unfold itself
the wagon track, the road to the Patriarch’s
cottage; and he was there again, and whispering lips
were around him, and men and women and children were
there, and in front of them, leading them, slithered
that twisted, misshapen, formless thing—­and
now they were upon the lawn, and about him everywhere,
everywhere, everywhere was a sea of white faces out
of which the eyes burned like living coals. What
power was this that, loosed, had stricken them to
palsied, moaning things!

Madison shivered a little—­and a sweat bead
oozed out and glistened upon his forehead. Hark—­what
was that! Clarionlike, clear as the chimes of
a silver bell, rang now that childish voice—­rang
out, and rang out again—­and the crutch
was gone—­and the lame boy ran, ran—­ran!
And who was that, that stood before him now—­that
golden-haired woman beside an empty wheel-chair, whose
face was radiant, who cried aloud that she was cured!
And who were these others of later days, this motley
crowd of old and young, that passed before him in
procession, that cried out the same words that golden-haired
woman by the wheel-chair had cried—­and
cried out: “Faith! Faith! Faith!”

Page 106

Madison swept the sweat bead from his forehead with
a trembling hand. It was a lie—­a lie—­a
lie! He had taught them to say that—­but
it was all bunk—­and all were fools!
He could laugh at them, jeer at them, mock at them,
deride them—­they were his playthings—­and
faith was his plaything—­and he could laugh
at them all!

And again he raised his head to laugh; and again the
laugh was choked in his throat, still-born—­Helena
was straight! To his temples went his twitching
hands. Anger raged upon him—­and died
in fear. Anger, for the instant maddening him,
that he should lose her; rage in ungovernable fury
that the game, his plans, the hoard accumulated, was
bursting like a bubble before his eyes—­died
in fear. No, no; he had not meant to laugh or
mock—­no, no; not that, not that! What
was this loosed titanic power that had done these
things—­that had brought this change in
Helena; that had brought a change in the Flopper, transforming
the miserable, pitiful, whining thief into a man reaching
out for decent things; that had wrought at least a
physical metamorphosis in Pale Face Harry—­that
had transfigured those three who, in their ugly, abandoned
natures then, had hung like vultures on his words in
the Roost that night! What was this power that
he was trifling with, that brought him now this cold,
dead fear before which he quailed! What was this
something that in his temerity he had dared
invoke—­that rose now engulfing him, a puny
maggot—­that snatched him up and flung him
headlong, shackled, before this nebulous, terrifying
tribunal, where out of nothingness, out of a void,
the calm, majestic features of the Patriarch took
form and changed, and changed, and kept changing, and
grew implacable, set with the stamp of doom. What
was it—­in God’s name, what was it
brought these sweat beads bursting to his forehead!
Was he going mad—­was he mad already!

And then the cycle again—­doubt, anger,
fear—­until his brain, exhausted, seemed
to refuse its functions; and it was as though, heavy,
oppressing, a dense fog shut down upon his mind and
enveloped it; and now he walked as a man in great
haste, hurrying, and now his pace was slow, uncertain.

And so he went on, following the little path that
bordered the woods on one hand and the fields on the
other; went on until he neared the village—­and
then he stopped suddenly, and turned about. Some
one had called his name.

From the field, a man climbed over the fence and came
toward him. The man’s face was tanned and
rugged, his form erect, and the sleeves rolled back
above the elbows displayed browned and muscular forearms.
Madison stared at the man apathetically. This
was the farm of course where Pale Face Harry boarded,
and this was Pale Face Harry—­but—­

“Doc,” said Pale Face Harry, and he shuffled
his feet and looked down, “Doc, I got something
I’ve been wanting to say to you for a week.”

Madison still gazed at him apathetically—­Pale
Face Harry for the moment was as some unwarrantable
apparition suddenly appearing before him.

Page 107

Pale Face Harry raised his eyes, lowered them, kicked
at a clod of earth with the toe of his boot—­and
raised his eyes again.

“Say,” he blurted out, “I’m
through, Doc. I’m—­I’m going
to quit.”

Into Madison’s stumbling brain leaped and took
form but one idea—­and he jumped forward,
reaching savagely for Pale Face Harry’s throat.

“You’d throw me, would you! You’d
throw the game—­would you!” he snarled,
as his fingers locked.

Pale Face Harry, twisting, wriggled free—­and
retreated a step.

“No; I ain’t!” he gasped—­and
then his sentences came tumbling out upon each other
jerkily, as though he were trying to compress what
he had to say into as few words as possible and as
quickly as he could, while he watched Madison warily.
“I ain’t throwing nothing. I just
want to quit myself. I keeps my mouth shut—­see?
I don’t want none of the share what’s
coming. Say, I’ve got more’n a hundred
times that out of it. Look at me, Doc! Say,
I’m like a horse. That’s the Patriarch
and living honest. Say, in all me life I never
knew what it was before till we comes here. If
I took the dough what’s coming I’d go back
to the old hell, and I’d go down and out again.
Say, it ain’t worth it, there’s nothing
in it. I ain’t throwing you, Doc—­I
just blows out of here with me trap closed. Say,
look at me, Doc—­don’t you get what
I mean?”

And then Madison burst into a peal of wild, strange
laughter; and, as though no man stood before him,
started on along the path—­and Pale Face
Harry sidled out of his way and stared after him.

But Madison made no answer. He heard Pale Face
Harry call out behind him; in a subconscious, mazed
way, he sensed the other following him, gropingly,
hesitantly, for a few yards, then hold back—­and
finally stop.

The path swerved. Madison went on—­blindly,
mechanically, as though, once set in motion, he must
go on. Some ghastly, unnatural thing was clogging
his brain; not only in a mental way, but clogging it
until there was physical hurt and pain, an awful tightness—­something—­if
he could only reach it with his fingers and claw it
away! There was black madness here, and a pain
insufferable—­a damnable impotence, robbing
him of even the power, the faculty to think or reason,
or to make himself understand in any logical degree
the meaning or the cause of this thing that sent his
brain swirling sick.

He halted. His lips were working; the muscles
of his face quivered. And suddenly, snatching
his hat from his head, he flung himself on the ground
and plunged face and head, feverishly, tigerishly,
into the little brook that ran beside the path.
Again and again he buried his face in the cold, clear,
refreshing water—­and then, still on hands
and knees, he raised his head to listen. Softly,
full of a great peace, full of a strange sweetness
that knew no discord, no strife, the notes of the
chapel bell floated across the fields. Evening
had come; the day’s work was done—­it
was benediction time. It was the call of the faithful—­the
Angelus of those who believed.

Page 108

It came, the revulsion, to Madison in a choked sob—­and
he stood up. The day’s work was done—­here.
Here they would go in quiet thankfulness each from
the farm to his little cottage, each to his simple,
wholesome meal, each to the twilight hours of gentle
communion as they talked to one another from their
doorways, each to his bed and his rest, tranquil in
the love of God and of man.

Madison flung back the dripping hair from his forehead.
Strange, the contrast that, unbidden, came insistently
to him now: The liquid notes of the bell wafted
sweetly on the evening breeze; the howling, jangling
turmoil of the city slums, of his familiar haunts where,
in mad chaos, reigned the hawkers’ cries, the
thunder of the elevated trains, the noisome traffic
of the street, the raucous clang of trolley bells—­the
sweet perfume of the, fields, the smell of trees, of
earth, of all of God’s pure things untouched,
unsoiled; the stench of Chatham Square, the reek of
whiskey spilled with the breath of obscene, filthy
lips—­the little village that he could see
beyond him, the tiny curls of blue smoke rising like
the incense from an altar over the roofs of houses
whose doors had no locks, whose windows were not barred,
where plain, homely folk, unsullied, lived at peace
with God and the world; the closed areaways of the
Bowery, the creaking stairs, the dim hallways leading
to dens of vileness and iniquity where, safe by bolts
from interruption, crime bred its offsprings and vice
was hatched. What did it mean!

And so he stood there for a little space; then presently
he started forward again; and presently he reached
the village street, walked down its length, greeted
from every doorway with hearty, unaffected sincerity,
and after a little while he came to the hotel, and
to his room—­and there he locked the door.

Helena was straight—­the words were repeating
themselves over and over in his brain. He began
to pace up and down the room. The words seemed
to take form and shape in fiery red letters, being
scrawled by invisible hands upon the walls—­Helena
was straight. Straight with Thornton, straight
with any man—­straight with her Maker.
He knew that now—­he had read it as a soul-truth
in those brave, deep, tear-dimmed eyes. And he
had lost her! It seemed as though he had
become suddenly conscious that he was enduring some
agony that was never to know an end, that from now
on must be with him always. He had lost her—­lost
Helena.

From his pocket he drew out his keys and opened his
trunks, and took out the trays and spread them about.
There were very many trays, they nested one upon the
other—­and they were exceedingly ingenious
trays—­false-bottomed every one. And
now he opened these false-bottoms, every one of them,
and stood and looked at them. The surest, safest,
biggest game he had ever played, the game that had
known no single hitch, the game that had brought no
whispering breath of suspicion flung its tribute in
his face. Money that he had never tried to count,
notes of all denominations, large and small, glutted
the receptacles—­jewels in necklaces, in
rings, in pendants, in brooches, in bracelets, diamonds,
rubies, emeralds, winked at him and scintillated and
glowed and were afire.

Page 109

And he stood and looked upon them. What was it
the Flopper had said when they had brought the Patriarch
back—­he did not remember. What was
it that Pale Face Harry had said a little while ago—­he
did not remember. These were jewels here and
money—­wealth—­and he had won the
greatest game that was ever played—­only
he had lost her—­lost Helena. And he
stood and looked upon them—­and slowly there
crept to his face a white-lipped smile.

“I’m beat!” he whispered hoarsely.
“Beat—­by the game—­I won.”

—­XXI—­

FACE VALUE

It was evening of the same day—­and there
came a knock at the outer door of the cottage porch.

The Flopper answered it, and came back to the Patriarch’s
room; where the Patriarch sat in his armchair; where
the lamp, turned low, throwing the little room into
half shadow, burned upon the table; where Helena,
far away from her immediate surroundings, quite silent
and still, her own chair close beside the other’s,
nestled with her head on the Patriarch’s shoulder.

Helena looked up as the Flopper returned.

Upon the Flopper’s face was a curious expression—­not
one that in the days gone by had been habitual—­it
seemed to mingle a diffidence, a kindly solicitude
and a sort of anxious responsibility.

“It’s Thornton askin’ fer youse,”
announced the Flopper.

Helena rose from her chair, and started for the door—­but
the Flopper blocked the way. Helena halted and
looked at him in astonishment.

The Flopper licked his lips.

“Say, Helena,” he said earnestly, “if
I was youse I wouldn’t go—­say, I’ll
tell him youse have got de pip an’ gone ter bed.”

“Not go?” echoed Helena. “What
do you mean?”

The Flopper scratched at his chin uneasily.

“Oh, you know!” he said. “De
Doc let youse down easy ter-day. Say, if youse
had piped his lamps when you drives up in de buzz-wagon
dis afternoon youse wouldn’t be lookin’
fer any more trouble. Say, I’m tellin’
youse straight, Helena. When I was out dere in
de kitchen an’ youse was in yer room wid him
me heart was in me mouth all de time. Youse can
take it from me, Helena, he let youse down easy.”

Helena’s brown eyes, a little wistfully, a little
softly, held upon the Flopper.

“Yes?” she said quietly.

“Youse had better cut it out ter-night, Helena,”
the Flopper went on. “Y’oughter know
de Doc by dis time—­de guy dat starts anything
wid de Doc gets his—­dat’s all!
Remember de night he threw Cleggy down de stairs in
de Roost?—­an’ he was only havin’
fun! Say, you go out wid Thornton again ter-night
an’ de Doc finds it out—­an’
something’ll happen. Say, Helena, fer God’s
sake, don’t youse do it—­de Doc was
bad enough dis afternoon when he let youse down easy,
but he’s worse now, an’—­”

“Worse?” Helena interrupted, smiling a
little apathetically. “In what way is he
worse? And how do you know? You haven’t
seen Doc, have you?”

Page 110

“No,” the Flopper answered, circling his
lips with his tongue again. “No; I ain’t
seen de Doc since—­but I seen Pale Face.
Say, Helena”—­the Flopper’s
words came stumbling out now, agitated, perturbed,
not altogether coherent—­“wot’s
de answer I dunno; I dunno wot’s de matter here.
Say”—­he pointed suddenly to the Patriarch,
whose face was turned toward them as he stroked thoughtfully
at his silver beard—­“he’s got
me fer fair—­dere ain’t no fake here—­dis
way ter live is de real t’ing—­he
ain’t like you an’ me—­he’s
more’n dat—­look at him now—­youse’d
t’ink he could see us, an’ was listenin’
ter wot we said. I dunno wot’s de end—­I
dunno wot’s de matter wid me. I was scared
more’n ever out dere dis afternoon on de lawn,
an’ I thought mabbe God ’ud strike me
dead—­but ’tain’t only dat I’m
scared ter buck de game any more, ’tain’t
only dat—­I don’t wanter any
more, an’ it don’t make no difference
about de dough—­I wanter live straight, same
as him, same as de guys around here, same—­same
as Mamie. Say, Helena, say, do youse believe in
love—­in—­in de real t’ing?”

Helena’s apathy was gone now—­a flush
dyed her cheeks. She was not startled at what
the Flopper had said—­she had seen it coming,
subconsciously, vaguely, mistily, for days now, only
she had been immersed in herself—­she was
not startled, and yet, in a way, she was. The
end! She too had been thinking about that—­and
she too did not know. What was the end?

“You were going to say something about Pale
Face,” she said, prompting the Flopper.
“Something about Pale Face and Doc.”

“Yes,” said the Flopper, and again the
tip of his tongue sought his lips nervously.
“Dat’s why I don’t want youse ter
go out wid Thornton ter-night. Pale Face has
got it de same as me, an’ he told de Doc dis
afternoon, out in de path dere, after de Doc left de
cottage here. Dere was a showdown—­see?
De Doc ‘ud kill youse an’ Thornton ter-night
if he caught youse ter-gether. He’s like
a wild man. When Pale Face tells him he was goin’
ter quit, de Doc makes a grab fer him by de t’roat
like a tiger, only Pale Face gets away, an’
den de Doc goes off widout a word, laughin’
like he’d escaped out of a dippy-house.
An’ Pale Face was shakin’ like he had
a fit when he gets here. Say, Helena, don’t
youse go ter-night.”

Helena made no answer for a moment. Thoughts,
a world of them, confused her, crowded upon her, as
they had ever since Madison had left her room a few
hours ago—­and the future was as some dread,
bewildering maze through which she had tried to stumble
and grope her way—­and had lost herself
ever deeper. How full of utter, miserable, bitter
irony it was that this thing, unscrupulous and shameful,
that they had created in their guilt should have brought
the beauty and the glory and the yearning of a new
life to her—­and yet should chain her remorselessly
to the old! True, she had broken with Madison,
irrevocably, forever, she supposed, it could not be

Page 111

other than that, for the ugly bond between them was
severed—­but the game still went on!
In repentance, on her bended knees, sobbing as a tired
and worn-out child, she could ask for forgiveness;
but the double life, the duplicity, by reason of the
very nature in which they had fashioned this iniquitous
monster, still went on, and like some hideous octopus
reached out its waving, feeling tentacles to encircle
her—­the Patriarch there; the world-wide
publicity, those poor creatures upon whose misery and
whose suffering, upon whose frantic, frenzied snatching
out at hope they had preyed and fed and gorged themselves;
the life itself that she had taken up, in its minutiae,
in its care of this great-souled, great-hearted man
so dear to her now, the life itself because it was
what it was, changed though she herself might be,
though her soul cried out against it in its new-found
purity—­all this still held her fast!
The end—­she could not see the end.
What would Madison do—­and there was Thornton.
Thornton! She caught her breath a little.
Yes; she had promised Thornton she would see him to-night—­she
knew well enough why he wanted to see her—­last
night had told her that—­he loved her.
Her face softened. Last night—­it seemed
a thousand years ago, and it seemed but as an instant
passed—­last night—­she had learned
what love was, and—­

The Flopper stirred uneasily.

“Wot’ll I tell him?” asked the Flopper.
“He’s waitin’ out dere by de porch.”

“Why—­why nothing,” said Helena,
and she smiled a little tremulously at the Flopper.
“Nothing. I’ll—­I’ll
go and see him.”

“Say, Helena,” protested the Flopper,
“don’t youse—­”

But Helena stepped by him now.

“Don’t leave the Patriarch,” she
cautioned, turning on the threshold. “I—­I
won’t be late.”

She passed down the little hall, through the still,
quiet room beyond, empty now, through the porch, and
out into the night—­and then from out the
shadows by the row of maples, Thornton came hurriedly
toward her, holding out his hands.

“It’s good of you to come, Miss Vail,”
he said, in his grave, quiet way. “You
must be nearly dead with weariness after last night,
and I am afraid I am not very thoughtful—­only
I—­” he broke off suddenly. “Shall
we sit here on the bench for a little while, or would
you rather walk—­I—­I have something
to say to you.”

It was very dark—­the storm of the night
before still lingered in a wrack of flying clouds,
scurrying one after the other, veiling the stars—­and
the moon was hidden—­and hidden too was the
sudden whiteness of Helena’s face. She
knew what he had to say, knew it before she had come
to him—­and yet she was there—­and
she had come resolutely enough—­only now
she was afraid.

“I would rather walk a little, I think,”
she said. “Here where—­where I
can be within call. My absence last night seems
to have made the Patriarch very uneasy, you know,
and—­and—­let us just walk up and
down here beneath the maples in front of the cottage.”

Page 112

How heavy upon the air lay the fragrance of the flowers;
how still the night was, save for the constant muffled
boom of the breaking surf!—­for a moment
an almost ungovernable impulse swept upon her to make
some excuse, anything, no matter how wild, a sudden
faintness, anything, and run from him back into the
cottage. And then she tried to think, think in
a desperate sort of way of some subject of conversation
that she might introduce that would stave off, postpone,
defer the words that she knew were even now on his
lips—­nothing—­she could think
of nothing—­only that she might have let
the Flopper have his way, have let him tell Thornton
that she had gone to bed with—­the pip.
The pip! She could have screamed out hysterically
as the word flashed all unbidden upon her—­it
stood for a very great deal that word—­her
world of the years of yesterday. Could she never
get away from that world; was it too late—­already!
Could she, even with all the earnestness, all the
yearning that filled her soul, ever live it down, ever
be what Naida Thornton had called her that night—­a
good woman! Could she—­

Thornton was speaking now—­how strange that
she would have done anything, given anything to prevent
his speaking—­and done anything, given anything
to make him speak! How strange and perplexed and
dismayed her brain was! Love! Yes; she wanted
love! God knew she wanted love such as his was—­for
he had shown her what love, free from abasing passion,
in its purest sense, was. Like a glimpse of glory,
hallowed, full of wondrous amazement, it came to her—­and
then her head was lowered, and the whiteness was upon
her face again.

He had halted suddenly and detained her with his hand
upon her arm—­with that touch, so full of
reverence, of fine deference, that had thrilled her
before—­that thrilled her now, awakening
into fuller life these new emotions whose birth was
in gladder, sweeter, purer aspirations.

“Miss Vail,” he said, in a low voice,
“there was a letter—­a letter that
Naida left—­did you know of it?”

They were close together, and it was very dark—­but
was it dark enough to hide the crimson that she felt
sweeping in a flood to her face! What was in
that letter? Had Mrs. Thornton written as she
had talked, or only about the Patriarch and the work
in Needley? She had forgotten for the moment
about the letter—­if there were more in it
than that, if it were about Thornton and herself and
what Mrs. Thornton had hoped for between them, and
she admitted knowledge of it, what would he think,
what could he think of her! But to deny
it—­no, not now. Once, and this came
to her in a little thrill of gladness, she would not
have hesitated; but now it—­it was—­it
was not that world of yesterday.

“Yes,” she said faintly; “she told
me that she had left a letter for you.”

Page 113

“It was about the work here,” said Thornton
gently. “Her whole soul seemed wrapt up
in that—­and she asked me as her last wish
to do what she would have done if she had lived; and
she spoke of you very beautifully.” Thornton
paused for a moment—­then he laid his hands
on Helena’s shoulders—­and she felt
them tremble a little. “Miss Vail—­Helena,”
he said, and his voice was full of passionate earnestness
now, “I cannot say these things well—­only
simply. I came back here to take an interest
in the work, for I too have it at heart—­but
I have more than that now—­there is you—­your
dear self. I love you, Helena—­you
have come into my life until you are everything and
all to me. Helena, look up at me—­will
you marry me, dear? Tell me what I long to hear.
Helena, Helena—­I love you!”

But Helena did not answer—­only very slowly
she raised her head. And his hands on her shoulders
tightened, and he was drawing her gently toward him.
Then he bent his head until it was close to hers, and
his breath was upon her cheek as it had been that
other night—­and the longing to know that
it was hers, a caress, pure in its motive, hers, snatched
out of all that had gone before that sought to rob
her of the right to ever know it, fascinated her,
held her spellbound, possessed her. Closer his
lips came to hers, closer, until they touched her—­and
then, with a cry, she sprang back, and her hands were
fiercely pressed against her cheeks, her throbbing
temples. Was she mad! Mad! Was it for
this that she had forced herself to give him the opportunity
to speak to-night, when her motive was so different,
when it had seemed the only right thing left
for her to do!

And now, still holding her temples, she raised her
eyes to Thornton—­he had stepped back like
a man stricken, his hands dropped to his sides.

“I—­we are mad!” she whispered.

“Helena!” he said in a numbed way; and
again; “Helena!” Then, with an effort
to control his voice: “You—­you
do not care—­you do not love me?”

“No,” she said—­and thereafter
for a long time a silence held between them.

Then Thornton spoke.

“Some day perhaps, Helena,” he said, “you
could learn to love me—­for I would teach
you. Perhaps now you feel that your whole duty
lies here in this work to which you have so unselfishly
given your life; but I would not hinder that, only
try to help as best I could. Perhaps I have been
abrupt, have spoken too soon—­it is only
a few weeks since I saw you first, but it seems as
though in those few weeks I had come to know you as
if I had known you all my life and—­”

But now she interrupted him, shaking her head in a
sad little fashion.

“You do not know me,” she said. “Sometimes
I think I do not know myself. Think! You
do not know where I came from to join the Patriarch
here; you have no single shred of knowledge about
me; you do not know a single particular of my life
before you knew me.”

Page 114

“I do not need to know,” he answered gravely.
“You are as genuine as pure gold is genuine—­it
is in your voice, your smile, your eyes. It is
a crude simile perhaps, but one never asks where the
pure gold was dug—­it stands for itself,
for what it is, because it is what it is—­pure
gold—­at its face value.”

The words seemed to stab at Helena, condemning, accusing;
and yet, too, in a strange, vague way, they seemed
to bring her a hope, a promise for the days to come—­at
face value! If she could live hereafter—­at
face value!

“Listen,” she said, and her voice was
very low. “I do not know how to say what
I must say to you. Last night I knew that—­that
you loved me. I had not thought of you like that,
in that way, until then, or—­or I should
have tried never to have let this hurt come to you.
But last night I knew, and since then I have known
that sooner or later you would—­would tell
me of it.” She stopped for an instant—­her
eyes full of tears now. “And so,”
she went on presently, “I have let you speak
to-night because it was better, it was even necessary
that I should do so at once—­because this
could not go on—­because you must go away
and—­”

“Necessary?” he repeated. “I—­I
do not understand.”

“No,” she said helplessly; “you
do not understand—­and I—­I cannot
explain. Oh, I do not know what to say to you,
only that you must take what I say, as you have taken
me—­at face value.”

“I do not understand,” he said again.
“Helena, I do not understand. Are you in
trouble—­tell me?”

“No,” she said.

“But I cannot go away like this!” he cried
out suddenly. “I cannot go and leave you,
Helena. You have come into my life and filled
it; and I cannot let you pass out of it—­like
this—­without an effort to hold what has
come to mean everything to me now. You may not
love me now, but some day—­”

She shook her head, interrupting him once more.

“There can never be a ‘some day,’”
she said. “Oh, I do not want to hurt you—­you,
to whom I owe more than you will ever know—­but—­but
there can never be anything between us, and—­and
we are only making it harder for ourselves now—­aren’t
we?”

And then he leaned abruptly toward her.

“Is there—­some one else?” he
asked in a strained voice.

And to Helena the question came as though it had been
an inspiration given him—­for after that
he would ask no more, seek no more to understand,
for he was too big and strong and fine for that; and
even if it was hopeless now this love that she had
known for Madison, even if it could never be again,
still that love was hers, and she could answer truthfully.

“Yes,” she said beneath her breath.

For a moment Thornton neither moved nor spoke.
Then he held out his hand.

“Miss Vail,” he said simply, “will
you tell this ‘some one else’ that another
man beside himself is the better for having known you.
Good-night. And may God bring you happiness through
all your life.”

Page 115

But she did not speak—­they were standing
by the rustic bench and she sank down upon it, and,
with her head hidden in one arm outflung across the
back of the seat, was sobbing softly.

And he stood and watched her for a little space, his
face grave and white; then taking the hand that lay
listlessly in her lap, he raised it to his lips—­and
turned away.

And so he left her—­and so, because of this,
he knocked upon another door that night, and all unwittingly
gave to that “some one else” himself the
message that he had asked Helena to deliver.

Madison, pacing his room like a caged beast, his teeth
working upon the cigar that he had never thought to
light, paid no attention to the summons until it had
been repeated twice; then, with a glance around the
room, his eyes lingering for a critical instant upon
the trunks, closed now, the trays restored to their
hiding places, he stepped to the door, unlocked it,
and flung it open. And at sight of Thornton, mechanically,
as second nature to him, outwardly, like a mask, there
came a smile upon his working lips, a suave, unconcerned
composure to his face; while inwardly, in his dazed,
fogged brain where chaos raged, surged an impulse
to fling himself upon the other, wreck a mad vengeance
upon the man—­and then swift upon the heels
of this an impulse to refrain, for if Helena was straight
why should he harm Thornton—­and then the
shuttle again—­why should he not—­hadn’t
Helena said that she had learned what love was last
night—­and last night she had been with Thornton.
How his brain whirled! What had brought Thornton
here, anyhow? If he stayed very long perhaps
he would batter Thornton to jelly after all! Quick,
almost instantaneous in their sequence came this wild
jumble singing dizzily its crazy refrain through his
mind—­and then to his amazement he heard
some one speaking pleasantly—­and to his
amazement it was himself.

The lamp was on the washstand, and, intuitively again,
Madison shifted his position to bring his face into
shadow—­and leaned against the foot of the
bed. He stared at Thornton, nodding—­Thornton’s
face was white and exceedingly haggard—­rather
curious for Thornton to look that way!

“Madison,” said Thornton abruptly, “I
believe you to be a gentleman in the best sense of
the word, and because of that, and because of the
unusual circumstances that first brought us together
and the mutual interests that have since been ours,
I have come to you to-night to tell you, first, that
I am going away from Needley and that I shall not
return—­and then to ask a service and repose
a trust in you. You have said several times that
you intended to remain here and take a personal and
active part in the work?”

Madison removed the chewed cigar end from one corner
of his mouth—­and placed it in the other.

Page 116

“Yes,” said Madison.

“Then this is what I want to say,” said
Thornton seriously. “For my own sake, because
it was my wife’s wish, and for other reasons
as well, my interest here, though I am going away,
will be just as great as it has ever been; and so
I want you to keep me thoroughly posted, and when the
time comes that I can be of further material assistance
to let me know. I impose only one condition—­you
are to say nothing to Miss Vail about it—­you
can make anything that I may do appear to come from
yourself.”

“Say nothing to Miss Vail!” repeated Madison
vaguely—­then a sort of ironic jest seemed
to take possession of him: “But Miss Vail
keeps all the funds.”

“That is why I am asking you to represent me,”
said Thornton quietly. “I am afraid that
she might have a natural diffidence about accepting
anything more from me—­I asked Miss Vail
to marry me to-night, and she refused.”

The cigar kind of slid down unnoticed from the corner
of Madison’s mouth—­and he leaned
forward, hanging with a hand behind him to the bedpost—­and
stared at Thornton.

“You—­what!” he gasped.

“Yes; I know,” Thornton answered—­and
moved abruptly toward the door. “Love makes
one’s temerity very great—­doesn’t
it? I asked her to marry me—­because
I loved her.” He came back from the door
and held out his hand, “I’ve told you
what I would tell no other man, Madison. You
understand now why—­and you’ll do this
for me?”

What answer Madison made he never knew himself—­he
only knew that he was staring at the door after Thornton
had gone out, and that he wanted to laugh crazily.
Marry Helena! Thornton had asked Helena to marry
him because he loved her. God, there was humor
here! His brain itself seemed to cackle at it—­marry
Helena!

And then suddenly there seemed no humor at all—­only
black, infamous shame and condemnation—­and
he straightened up from where he leaned against the
bedpost, his face set and strained.

“Thornton had asked Helena to marry him because
he loved her”—­the words came
slowly, haltingly, aloud—­and then he covered
his face with his hands. But he, he who loved
her too—­what had he done!

—­XXII—­

THE SHRINE

For a little time Madison stood there in his room,
motionless, staring unseeingly before him—­and
then, as one awakening from a dream that had brought
dismay and a torment too realistic to be thrown from
him on the instant, his brain still a little blunted,
he took up his hat mechanically, went out from the
room, descended by the back stairs to the rear door
of the hotel, and took the road to the Patriarch’s
cottage.

Page 117

And as he walked in the freshness of the night, the
restless turmoil of his soul that since early afternoon
had brought him near to the verge of madness itself,
that had robbed him of sane virility, that a moment
since in his room had suddenly begun to lift from him
even as the leaden clouds in the vault above him now
were scattering, breaking, and through the rifts a
moon-glint and the starlight came, passed from him
utterly—­and a strange calm, a strange joy,
a strange sadness was upon him—­and his
brain for the first time in many hours was rational,
keen—­and he was master of himself again—­and
yet master of himself no more!

He smiled a little at the seeming paradox—­smiled
a little wistfully. He was beaten—­by
the game—­he had won. How strange it
was that sense of more than resignation now—­a
sense that seemed like one of thankfulness—­a
sense that bade him fling wide his arms as though
suddenly they had been loosed from bondage and he was
free, free as the God-given air around him.

He could understand Helena, and the Flopper, and Pale
Face Harry now. With them it had come slowly,
in a gradual concatenation, a progression, as it were,
that had worked upon them, molding them, changing them
day by day—­and he had been too blind to
see, or, seeing, had measured the changes only by
a standard as false as all his life had been false.
With him it had come in a crash, unheralded, that
had left him a naked, quivering, stricken thing to
know madness, terror and despair, to taste of emotions
that had sickened the soul itself.

On Madison walked—­along the road, across
the little bridge, into the wagon track where, under
the arched branches, it was utter dark. There
was no one upon the road—­he passed no one—­saw
no one—­he was alone.

He had lost Helena—­but he understood her
now—­understood the depth of remorse that
she was living through, the terror and the dread as
she sought escape, the fear of him—­yes,
it would be fear now where once it had been love!
He had lost Helena—­that was the price he
had paid—­but he understood her now, and
he was going to her to help her if he could, going
to tell her that he, too, was changed—­as
she was changed.

His hands clenched suddenly. God, the misery,
the hopelessness, the wreck and ruin that lay at his
door! And amends—­what amends could
he make—­it was too late for that!
How clearly he saw now—­when it was too
late! Her life was a broken thing, robbed, stripped
and despoiled for all the years to come. Their
love had not been love—­she had given it
its name—­“passion, vice, lust, sin,
degradation and misery and shame.” And
then love had come to her, into her life, love as God
had meant love to be, and she had learned what love
was she had said—­only that she might never
know its fulness, only that it might bring her added
bitterness and added sorrow! Thornton had asked
her to marry him that night—­and she had
refused him—­because the past, it must have
been as a shuddering, hideous phantom that the past
had risen before her, had left her no other thing
to do but turn away. It seemed he could see her—­see
her bury her face in her hands and—­

Page 118

He stopped short in his walk. Was he changed
so much as this! Did he care so much that it
was her happiness—­even with another—­that
counted most! Yes; it was true—­he
was changed indeed. And the change had brought
him too, it seemed, to learn what love was—­too
late.

He went forward again—­a little more slowly;
now; a sadness upon him, but, through the sadness,
an uplift from that new sense of freedom that was
as a balm, soothing him in the most curious way.
His had been a rude awakening—­mind and
body and soul had been torn asunder; but he knew now,
as he recalled the hours just past when he had looked
on fear, when the gamut of human passion had raged
over him, when he had stood staggered and appalled
before, yes, before his God, that he had come forth
a new man. And how strange had been the ending,
how strange and simple, and yet how significant, typifying
the broad, clean outlook on life, bringing coherency
to his tottering mind, had been those words of Thornton’s—­“because
he loved her.”

He had reached the end of the wagon track now, and
he walked across the lawn, his steps noiseless on
the velvet sward, and passed between the maples; and
the moon gleam—­for the flying clouds, rear-guard
of the routed storm, were flung wide apart, dispersed—­fell
upon a coiled and huddled little figure all in white,
that was quite still and motionless upon the rustic
seat beside the porch.

She did not see him, did not hear him, until he stood
before her and called her name.

“Helena!” he said unsteadily. “Helena!”

She raised her head and looked at him; and then she
rose from the bench, and, still holding to it by one
hand, drew back a little. There was no outcry,
no startled action. Her dark eyes played questioningly
upon him—­and he could see that they were
wet with tears, and that the face from out of which
they looked was very white.

“Why have you come back here to-night?”
she asked in a low tone; and then, suddenly, a fear,
a terror in her voice, as the Flopper’s warning
flashed upon her: “Thornton—­you
have seen Thornton?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised a little that
she should know; “I saw Thornton a few minutes
ago.”

She came toward him now and clutched his arm.

“What have you done?” she cried tensely.
“Answer me! You—­you met him on
your way here?”

It was a moment before Madison replied. He had
schooled himself of course for more than this, yet
the words hurt—­that was why she had asked
for Thornton—­she was afraid that he had
harmed the man.

“No,” he said; “I did not meet him.
I think you must have been longer here on that bench
than you imagined—­haven’t you?
He came to my room.”

“Your room! What for? Tell me!”

Madison smiled with grave whimsicality.

“To call me a gentleman and repose a trust.”

She stepped back again, uncertainly.

“I do not know what you are talking about,”
she said in a strained way. “And you are
talking very strangely.”

Page 119

“Yes,” he said. “Everything
is strange to-night. It is like a new world,
and—­and I have not found my way—­yet.”

She drew back still further.

“Are you mad?” she whispered.

“No,” he answered. “Not now—­that
Is past.”

She looked at him for a little time; and, her hands
joined before her, her fingers locked and interlocked
nervously.

“And—­and Thornton?” she asked,
at last.

“It was a trust,” said Madison slowly;
“but it was betrayed before it was given.
He did not know—­the game. He did not
know what was between—­you and me.”

“No,” she said—­and the word
came almost inaudibly.

“And so,” he said, “I will tell
you, for it cannot matter now in any case. He
told me that he had asked you to marry him to-night—­and
that you had refused.”

“Yes,” she said—­and reached
again for the back of the bench, supporting herself
against it.

“He is going away,” Madison continued;
“and he is to send more money here for the ’cause’—­when
I ask for it—­only you are not to know,
because you might be diffident about taking it after
refusing him.”

She stared at him numbly—­there was no sarcasm
in his words; in his tones only a sort of dreary monotony.
She shivered a little—­how cold it seemed!
She did not quite grasp his words—­and yet
she shrank from them. And then her very soul
seemed to cry out against them, to pit itself against
their meaning, as their meaning surged upon her.
And unconsciously she drew herself up, and the whiteness
of her face fled before a rush of color.

“Oh, the shame of it!” she burst out.
“The bitter shame of it! You shall not
touch the money—­do you hear! You shall
not touch it! I—­I thought that you
had understood this afternoon. I am glad then
that you have come to-night—­if I must say
more to make you understand. This is the end!
I do not care what happens—­the little I
can do now to atone for what I have done, I am going
to do. The game is at an end—­you shall
not touch another cent—­and everything that
we have taken goes back to those whom we have worse
than robbed it from! You hear—­you understand!
I will cry it out in the town street if there is no
other way—­but it shall stop—­it
shall stop to-night”—­she was panting,
breathless, the little figure erect, outraged, quivering—­and
then suddenly the shoulders seemed to droop, the lips
to tremble, and she was on her knees upon the grass
beside the bench, and sobbing as a child.

“Helena!” Madison said hoarsely.
“Helena! Listen! That is what I came
for to-night—­to find a way out for you,
for us all, if I can.”

The passionate outburst passed—­and she
was on her feet again, facing him.

“You are clever—­clever!” she
cried fiercely. “But you shall not play
with me—­you shall not trick me—­I
meant every word I said!”

Page 120

But now Madison made no answer. The moonlight
bathed them both in its clear, white radiance; and
touched the sward, shading it to softest green; and
the trees limned out like fairy things against the
night; and the calm light flooded the little cottage
with its hidden walls where the ivy and the creepers
grew, and lingered over the trellises to drink the
fragrance of the flowers that peeped out from their
leafy beds. And upon Madison’s face crept
slowly the anguish that was in his soul—­until
it was mirrored there—­until unconsciously
it answered her where words would have been useless
things. Like some white-robed, sorrowing angel,
she seemed, as she stood there before him—­the
brown eyes full of shadow, troubled; the sweet face
tear-splashed; the little figure in its simple muslin
frock, pitiful in its brave defiance. And pure—­just
God, how pure she looked!—­the brow stainless
white under the mass of dark, coiled hair; the perfect
throat of ivory. And—­and the misery
that was in every feature of her face, in every line
of her poise—­and he had brought her that—­he
had brought her to that—­and now when he
loved her as he might have loved her once and known
her love in return, when his heart cried out for her,
when she was all in life he cared for, she was gone
from him, out of his life, and between them was a barrier
he could never pass—­a barrier of his own
raising.

And so he made no answer, for indeed he had not heard
her; but she was coming toward him now, her hands
outstretched in a wondering way, wistfully, pleadingly,
as though to hold back a refutation that would change
the dawning light upon her face to dismay and grief
again.

“It—­it is true,” she faltered.
“It has come to you too—­this change,
this new life that has come to me. It is true—­I
can see it in your face.”

“Yes; it is true,” he answered, in a low
voice.

“Thank God!” she whispered—­and
hid her face in her hands—­and presently
he heard her sob again.

A tiny cloud edged the moon, and the light faded,
and it grew dark, and the darkness hid her; then softly,
timidly almost it seemed, the radiance came creeping
through the branches overhead again—­and
then he spoke.

“Helena,” he said, steadying his voice
with an effort, “you spoke of atonement a little
while ago; but there is no atonement that I can make
to you—­nothing that I can do to change what
I would give my soul to change. I know what it
meant to you to send Thornton away to-night, for I
love you now as you love him—­I know why
you did it, and—­”

She was staring at him a little wildly—­her
hands pressed against her cheeks.

“Love—­Thornton,” she repeated
in a sort of wondering way, a long pause between the
words.

“Yes,” he said gently; “I know.
Have you forgotten what you told me this afternoon?—­that
you had learned—­last night—­what
love was.”

She shook her head.

“I do not love Thornton,” she said in
a monotone. “And yet it is true that through
him I learned what love was, what it could be—­don’t
you understand?”

Page 121

Understand! No; it seemed that he could never
understand! She did not love Thornton! And
then, as some fiery cordial, the words seemed to whip
through his veins, quickening the beat of his heart
into wild, tumultuous throbbing. Yes, yes, he
could understand—­it was true—­true—­she
did not love Thornton.

“Helena!” he cried—­and stretched
out his arms to her. “I thought, oh, God,
I thought that I had lost you—­Helena!”

But she did not move.

“What does it matter to you whether I love Thornton
or not?” she said dully. “Does it
change anything where you and I are concerned—­does
it change what I told you this afternoon—­that
I would not go back to that.”

“To that! Ah, no!”—­his
voice rang dominant, vibrant, triumphant now.
“Helena, don’t you understand? We
are to begin life again—­in a new way, the
true way, the only way. Don’t you see—­I
love you!”

Still she did not move—­but there was a
great whiteness in her face, and in the whiteness
a great light.

“You mean?”—­her lips scarcely
seemed to form the words.

“Yes!” he cried. “Yes; to make
a home for you, to marry you if only you love me still,
to live in God’s own sight and hold you as a
sacred gift—­Helena! Helena!”—­his
arms went out to her again, and the yearning in his
soul was in his voice—­to crush her to him,
to hold her in his arms, and hold her there where
none should take her from him, to shield and guard
her through the years to come, to live with her a life
that seemed to break now in a vista of gladness, of
glory, as the day-dawn breaks with its golden rays
of God-given promise—­the new life, perfect
and pure and innocent—­because he loved her.
“Helena! Speak to me. Tell me that
it is not too late—­tell me that you love
me too.”

And then her eyes were raised to his, and they were
wet—­but there was love-light and a wondrous
happiness shining through the tears.

“Helena!” he murmured brokenly—­and
swept her into his arms—­and kissed the
eyelids, lowered now, the hair, the white brow, the
lips—­kissed her, and held her there, her
clinging arms about his neck, her face half hidden
on his shoulder.

And so for a space they stood there—­and
there were no words to say, only the song in their
hearts in deathless melody—­but after a little
time he held her from him, and lifted up her face that
he might look his fill upon it.

“Helena,” he said, “I cannot understand
it all yet—­it is as though it were born
out of the sin and the darkness and the blackness of
what is gone—­as though here at this Shrine
that we created in mockery and crime it was meant
that you and I should save each other for each other.
And yet this Shrine as we have made it is a thing
of guilt, and it has brought us all, you and I, and
Harry, and the Flopper to a new life.”

She lay still for a moment in his arms—­then
her hand crept up and touched his forehead and smoothed
back his hair.

Page 122

“I do not quite know how to say it,” she
said a little timidly. “When you went away
this afternoon, the Patriarch took me back into his
room, and—­and I knelt at his knees—­and
after a little while my mind seemed very calm and
quiet—­do you know what I mean? And
I tried to think things out—­and understand.
And it seemed to come to me that there was a shrine
everywhere if we would only look for it—­that
God has put a shrine in every heart, only we are so
blind—­that every one can make their own
surroundings beautiful and good and true, no matter
where they are, or how poor, or how rich—­and
if they live like that they must be good and true
themselves.”

“Yes,” he said slowly; then, after a moment:
“And faith too is very much like that.”

“Only some need a sign,” she said.

There was silence again, while her hand crept over
his face and back to his forehead to smooth his hair
once more—­and then very gently she slipped
out of his arms.

“What are we to do about—­about everything
here?” she asked soberly. “We are
forgetting that in our own happiness. How are
we going to return the money that we have taken?”

“I’ve thought a great deal about it since
yesterday—­and I’m not so sure it
is to be ’managed somehow’—­and
the more I’ve thought the more tangled and complicated
it has become.”

“Well, we’ll untangle it to-morrow,”
said Madison, with a smile, “and—­”

“No”—­she touched his sleeve.
“To-night. Let us do it now—­to-night.
I should be so happy then.”

He smiled at her again, and drew her to him.

“But we ought to have Pale Face and the Flopper
too, don’t you think so?” he said.

“Of course,” she said; “and so we
will. The Flopper is here, and we can send him
for Harry. It’s early yet—­not
ten o’clock.”

“All right,” said Madison; “if you
wish it. We’ll go in then and get the Flopper.”

And so they walked to the cottage door, and into the
porch—­but in the porch Madison held her
for a moment, and lifted up her face again and looked
into her eyes.

“My—­wife,” he whispered—­and
took her in his arms.

—­XXIII—­

THE WAY OUT

Strange scene indeed! Strange antithesis to that
other night when these four were gathered in that
crime-reeked, sordid room at the Roost—­where
Pale Face Harry, gaunt, emaciated, coughed, and, trembling,
plunged a morphine needle in his arm; where the Flopper,
a wretched tatterdemalion from the gutter, licked
greedy lips and gloated in his rascality; where Helena,
flushed-faced, inhaled her interminable cigarettes
and dangled her legs from the table edge; where Madison,
suave, flippant, so certain of his own infallibility,
glorying in his crooked masterpiece, laid the tribute
to genius at his own feet!

Page 123

Strange scene! Strange antithesis indeed!
It was quiet here—­very still—­only
the distant, muffled boom of the pounding surf.
And the shrine-room, for the first time since its
creation, was locked against the night. It lay
now in shadow from the single lamp upon the table—­and
the light, where it fell in a shortened circle, for
the lamp itself had a little green paper shade, was
soft, subdued and mellow.

Where he had been wont to sit in the days gone by,
the Patriarch sat now in his armchair by the empty
fireplace—­in the shadow—­his head
turned in his strange, listening, attentive way toward
the table—­toward the four who were grouped
around it. There had been no one to stay with
him in his own room, and so Helena had brought him
there—­to play his silent part.

At the table, Pale Face Harry, bronzed and rugged,
clear-eyed, a robust figure from his clean living,
his months of the out-of-doors, traced the grain of
the wood on the table mechanically with his finger
nail, his face sober, perplexed; while the Flopper,
clear-eyed too, his face almost a handsome one in
its bright alertness, now that it had rounded out
and the hard, premature lines were gone, mirrored Pale
Face Harry’s perturbed expression, his eyes
fixed anxiously on Madison opposite him; and Helena,
sitting beside Madison, was very quiet, her forehead
wrinkled and pursed up into little furrows, the brown
eyes with a hint of dismay and consternation lurking
in their depths, one hand stretched out to lay quite
unconsciously on Madison’s sleeve—­and
from the sleeve to steal occasionally into Madison’s
hand.

Madison, his lips tight, pushed back his chair suddenly—­they
had been sitting there an hour.

“You were right, Helena,” he said, with
a nervous laugh. “The more you try to figure
it out the worse it gets.”

“Aw, say, Doc,” pleaded the Flopper desperately,
“don’t youse give it up—­youse
have got de head—­youse ain’t never
left us in a hole yet.”

Madison looked at him, and smiled mirthlessly.

“My head!” he exclaimed bitterly.
“I got you into this, all of you—­but
it will take more than my head to get you out.
If I could stand for it myself, I’d do it—­but
I can’t without dragging you in too—­we’re
too intimately mixed up. If I said it was a deal
of mine—­they’d ask where Helena came
from—­they’d ask where you came from,
Flopper. We’re beaten—­beaten
every way we turn. The game has got us—­we
haven’t a move. We played it to the limit,
the slickest swindle that was ever worked, and it
worked till there’s more money than I’ve
tried to count. And then it changed us from thieves,
from—­from anything you like—­and
now that we want to quit, now that we want a chance
to make good, it’s got us in its grip and we
can’t get away.” He flirted a bead
of moisture from his forehead. “My God,
I don’t know what to do!” he muttered
hoarsely. “It was easy enough to talk
about stopping this thing, about returning the money—­but
I can’t see the way out.”

Page 124

No one answered him—­all were silent—­as
silent as the mute and venerable figure that sat,
listening attentively it seemed, in the armchair by
the fireplace.

Madison turned abruptly after a moment to Pale Face
Harry.

“You, Harry,” he said, laying a hand on
the other’s shoulder, “you’re the
only one of the four that can walk out of it—­you
don’t show in the center of the stage—­you
go. You said the old folks would cry over you—­twenty
years is a long time to stay away from the old folks—­I—­I
never knew mine. You go on back to the little
farm out there in the West where you said you’d
like to go, and—­and give the old people
a hand for the years they’ve got left.”

Pale Face Harry shook his head.

“God knows I’d like to,” he said,
choking a little; “that’s what I counted
on. God knows I’d like to go out there and
lead a decent life—­but I don’t go
that way—­I don’t crawl out and leave
you—­what’s coming to you is coming
to me.”

“No,” he said. “I stick.
If the game’s got you, it’s got me too—­to
the limit. There’s no use talking about
that.”

The Flopper licked his lips miserably.

“Swipe me!” he mumbled. “Hell
wasn’t never like dis! Me an’ Mamie
we’ve got it fixed, an’ her old man says
he’ll take me inter de store. Say, Doc,
say—­ain’t dere a chanst ter live straight
now we wants ter?”

But Madison did not hear the Flopper save in a vague,
inconsequential way—­he was looking at Helena.
She had drooped forward a little over the table, her
chin in her hands, her lips quivering—­and
a white misery in her face seemed to bring a chill,
a numbness to his heart. His Hands clenched,
and he began to pace up and down the room.

How buoyantly he had tackled the problem—­buoyant
in his own emancipation, buoyant in his love, in the
future full of dreams, full of inspiration, full of
the new life that Helena and he would live together!
How confidently he had settled himself to undo in a
moment the work of months, to outline a mere matter
of detail, with never a thought that he was face to
face with a problem that he could never solve—­that
brought him to the realization that the game, not he,
was the master still, iron-handed, implacable—­that
though the mental chains were loosed it was but as
if, in ironic justice, in grim punishment, only that
he might look, clear-visioned, upon the ignominy of
the physical shackles he himself had forged and fashioned
so readily, whose breaking now was beyond his strength.

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He had done his work well! In the first few moments,
an hour ago, when he had begun to consider the problem,
as seeming difficulties arose, he had turned coolly
from one alternative to another. And then slowly
a sickening sense of the truth had begun to dawn upon
him—­and like a man lost in a great forest,
peril around him, he had plunged then desperately
in this direction and in that, as a glimmering point
of light here or there had seemed to promise an avenue
of escape—­only to find it vanish at almost
the first step, the way closed as by some invisible,
remorseless power. No, not invisible—­it
seemed to take the form of the Patriarch—­for
at every turn the majestic figure stood and would
not let him pass.

Madison’s face was gray now as he walked up
and down the room—­there was his own revulsion,
his abhorrence at the part he had played, a frantic,
honorable eagerness to be rid of it; there were these
others too who looked to him, the Flopper and Pale
Face Harry; and there was—­Helena!
He did not dare to look at the misery in her face again—­he
was unmanned enough now.

And then Helena spoke.

“It—­it seems,” she said, in
a low broken way, “as if—­as if God
did not want to pardon us—­as if our repentance
had come too late, and that there was no Eleventh
Hour for us.” Then, in passionate pleading,
facing Madison: “God cannot mean that—­it
is we who cannot see. There is some way out—­there
must be—­there must be.”

“It begins and ends with the Patriarch,”
said Madison monotonously. “We can’t
sacrifice him—­can we! What’s
the use of going over it again? It all comes
back to the same point—­the Patriarch.”

“Yes, yes; I know, I know,” she said piteously.
“But think, Doc—­think!
See now, we just send back all the money and jewels—­we
know to whom they belong.”

“Well, what reason do we give?” Madison
said heavily. “The Patriarch is alive and
well. The immediate corollary is that from the
moment we do that, to-morrow morning for instance,
every gift, every offering here is suddenly refused.
What reason do we give? If it were only the donors
who were to be considered it might be done. It’s
human nature that ninety-nine out of every hundred
of them”—­his voice rose a little
bitterly—­“would probably be only too
glad to get their money back—­and the mere
statement that you, as the Patriarch’s grand-niece,
his only relative, on mature thought did not consider
the project as planned advisable might suffice.
But this thing goes beyond that, beyond even the remaining
few who are earnestly interested and would cause us
trouble—­it is world-wide in its publicity!
Every newspaper in the land would snatch at it for
a headline, and ask—­why? And they would
not be content with simply asking why—­this
thing is too big for that—­too much before
the people’s eyes—­too good ‘copy.’
They’d start in to find out—­and the
result is inevitable. Our safety so far has lain

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in the fact that there has been no suspicion aroused;
but snooping around a bank vault at midnight with
a mask on and a bull’s-eye lantern fades to
a whisper as a suspicion-arouser compared with anybody
willingly coughing up a bunch of money once they’ve
got their claws on it—­and a yellow journal,
let alone an army corps of them, on the scent of a
possible sensation has all the detective bureaus in
the country pinned to the ropes—­they’d
have us uncovered quicker than I like to think about
it—­and that means—­”

He stopped, and with a hurried motion, carried his
hands across his eyes—­Helena, pure as one
of God’s own angels now, to come to that, to
come to—­

It was the Flopper who completed the sentence.

“Ten spaces up de river,” said the Flopper,
and shivered, and his tongue sought his lips; “or
mabbe—­mabbe twenty.”

Pale Face Harry stirred uneasily.

“There’s the other way,” he said
without looking up, his eyes on his finger nail that
traced the grain of the wood again. “Get
the money and the sparklers all done up and addressed
to the ones they came from, send ’em off in
a bunch to Thornton—­and we fly the coop
before he gets them, disappear, fade away—­and
take our chances of getting caught.”

“Yes,” said Madison, beginning his stride
up and down the room again. “After all,
whether we could give back the money without being
caught, or whether we couldn’t, is not the vital
thing; there is—­the Patriarch.”

Helena’s eyes were on the silent figure in the
shadows by the fireplace.

“If—­if it were not for him,”
she said, “I think that perhaps—­perhaps
I might be brave enough to confess it all, and—­and
not try to escape from the punishment that I deserve.
But he would know—­he cannot see, nor hear,
nor speak, but he would know—­as he seems
so strangely, so wonderfully, so supernaturally to
know and understand everything. And, oh, he means
so much to me, to us all, for it is he, more than any
one else, who has saved us from—­from what
we were. And he loves us. It would shatter
his faith, ruin all that his life has meant to him,
and—­and we cannot bring him grief and sorrow
like that. Oh, what can we do! What can
we do! We cannot stop—­and we cannot
go on! We cannot stay here even if we returned
the money successfully, and we cannot stay here if
we kept it as it is; for things would still have to
go on as they are, even if we didn’t mean to
steal any more, no matter what we might say or do,
for it’s beyond our control now, and to stay
means that we should still have to live and lead our
double lives, still have to practise hypocrisy and
deceit, and—­and I cannot—­we cannot
do that any more. And the only way to get away
from it all is to run away—­and we can’t

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do that, either! There is—­the Patriarch.
We cannot leave him—­to break his heart—­with
none he loves to care for him. We can’t
do that. He is a very old, old man, and—­and
I think he has been happy with us, and—­and
we must make him happy always as long as he lives.
We cannot go away and leave him. We can’t
do that.” Then, in a heartbroken, despairing
cry: “We can’t do—­anything!”

No one answered her. She had begged Madison to
go over it all again—­and she had summed
it up herself. There was—­the Patriarch.

There was utter silence in the room now, save only
for that low, solemn boom of distant surf—­for
Madison had stopped his nervous pacing up and down,
and stood now by the Patriarch’s armchair gazing
into the fireplace.

The minutes passed, and the silence in that dim, shadowed
room grew tense—­and tenser still—­until
the very shadows themselves, as the lamp flickered
now and then, seemed to creep and shift and readjust
themselves in stealth. No sound—­no
movement—­utter stillness—­only,
from without, the mourning of the surf, like a dirge
now.

And then, with a sudden sob, Helena flung out her
arms across the table toward the Patriarch.

“Oh, if he could only speak!” she cried
pitifully. “If he could only speak—­he
would show us the way out.”

The words seemed to come to Madison as an added pang.
He turned his eyes instinctively from the fireplace
to the Patriarch beside him—­and then, a
moment, as a man stricken, he stood there—­and
then reaching quickly for the lamp from the table
he held it up, and leaned forward toward the figure
in the chair.

Helena, startled at the act, rose almost unconsciously
to her feet, her hands holding tightly to the table
edge—­looking at Madison, looking at the
silent form where Pale Face Harry, where the Flopper
looked.

“What is it?” she asked tensely, under
her breath.

Madison’s lips moved—­silently.
His face was white, ashen—­there was no
color in it. Then his lips moved once more.

“The way out,” he said; and again, in
a low, awed way: “The way out.
We can make restitution now—­we can give
it all back—­he has shown us the
way out.”

Helena’s lips were quivering, tears were dimming
the brown eyes, trembling on the lashes, as she stepped
now to Madison’s side.

“It is God who has shown us the way out,”
she whispered brokenly—­and dropping down
before the chair, her little form shaken with sobs,
she hid her face on the Patriarch’s knees.

And serene and peaceful as a child in sleep, a smile
like a benediction on the saintly face, the Patriarch
sat in his armchair by the fireplace where he had
been wont to sit in years gone by—­and so
he had passed on.

The Patriarch was dead.

—­XXIV—­

VALE!

The years have passed—­but in their passing
have brought few changes to the little village nestling
in the Maine pines that border on the sea. Not
many changes—­it is as though Time had touched
it loath to touch at all; as though some spirit lingering
there, sweet and fresh and vernal, had bade Time stay
its hand.

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Not many changes—­the same familiar faces
gather around the stove in the hotel office; and,
neither as a memory, nor yet as of one who has gone,
but as if he were amongst them, living still, they
speak of the Patriarch as of yore.

And with this little circle of kindly, simple folk
Time has dealt gently too, for there is only one who
is no more—­Cale Rodgers, the proprietor
of the general store.

But the general store on the village street still
flourishes, and in Cale Rodgers’ place is one
whose speech is still a marvelous thing in staid old
New England ears—­it is an Irish brogue perhaps,
for his name is Michael Coogan. There are little
Coogans too, and Mamie is a happy wife. And to
the Coogans come sometimes letters from a far-western
farm to say that things are well and that prosperity
has come to one who signs himself—­facetiously
it always seems to Mamie who reads the letters to
her husband—­as Pale Face Harry.

And so the years have passed, and it is summer time
again. The fields are green; the trees in leaf;
the flowers in bloom. And there are visitors
who have come again to the scenes of yesterday—­a
man and woman—­and between them a sturdy
little lad of eight. They stop at the end of
the wagon track and look out across the lawn.

It is still and peaceful, tranquil—­and
to them conies the soft, low murmur of the surf.
Slowly they walk across the lawn, and pass beneath
the splendid maples—­and pause again.

The cottage is like some poet’s fancy, hidden
shyly in its creepers and its vines; and seems to
speak and breathe in its simple beauty of the gentle
soul who once had lived there—­and loved
his fellow-men. It is as it always was, open,
free for all to pass within who wish to enter; for
loving hands have cared for it, and grateful purses,
opened to its needs, have kept it as—­a
Shrine.

But they do not enter now, for Madison points to where
the sunlight, as it glints through the trees at the
far end of the cottage, falls on a slender shaft of
marble.

“Let us go there, Helena,” he said softly.

And so they walked that way, past the trellises laden
with flowers, past the end of the cottage; and presently
they stopped again where, beneath the maples’
shade, rises the pure white stone—­and beyond
it is the sweep of the eternal sea.

Madison, his hair streaking just a little gray at
the temples now, removed his hat—­and his
face softened, saddened, as he read the simple inscription:

THE PATRIARCH

The boy glanced at his father a little wonderingly—­and
then spelt out the words. He shook his head.

“I don’t know what that means,”
he said. “What does that word mean?”

Madison patted his head.

“You tell him, Helena,” he said—­and
came and stood beside her.

And so Helena told the boy in simple language as much
of the Patriarch’s story as she thought he could
understand—­and when she had finished the
boy’s face was aglow.

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“And!” he said breathlessly, “and—­and
did he ever do a really, truly-truly miracle?”

There was silence for an instant—­then a
tender smile came trembling to Helena’s lips,
and into the brown eyes crept the love-light, as she
reached out to Madison and her hand found his and held
it very tightly.

And Madison bent and kissed her; and drew the little
lad between them and laid his hand on the boy’s
head, and answered for Helena.

“Yes, my son,” he said; “and some
day when you are a man you will understand how great
a miracle it was.”